Aadhaar is embedded in almost every Indian’s life, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has said in a new booklet, maintaining that “99.9 percent” adults in the country have an Aadhaar number and also “use it at least once a month”.
Citing the organisation’s aim going forward to make Aadhaar more central to residents’ lives and achieve nearly 100% coverage across all age groups, the UIDAI booklet says Aadhaar has become a “lifeline for the poor and marginalised” as the crisis in the aftermath of Covid-19 demonstrated. News18 has accessed this UIDAI booklet, which has been circulated inside the government this month.
80% of beneficiaries feel Aadhaar has made services like PDS, MNREGA, etc, more reliable, the booklet says. The overall Aadhaar coverage stands at 92.7%, with nearly 100% coverage amongst adults, 92.5% coverage amongst children between 5-18 years of age, and 25% coverage amongst children below five years. Exploring newer use cases for the adoption of Aadhaar is an aim, the booklet says.
For 8% of Aadhaar holders, it was their first ever government ID and it has increased the speed of India’s digital economy.
Big numbers
Some startling figures have been cited in the booklet to portray the benefits of Aadhaar. It says that till April 2022, over 77.25 crore Aadhaar IDs have been uniquely linked with the bank accounts on the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) mapper. Also, in 2021-22, over 1362.59 crore successful transactions have been done using the Aadhaar Enabled Payment Systems (AEPS) platform across nearly 36.90 lakh micro-ATMs provided by 124 banks.
This was a 45% growth from 938.14 crore AEPS transactions in 2020-21, the booklet says. AEPS is the platform used in the micro-ATMs that are held by the Bank Mitras engaged by the banks for providing services at the doorsteps in the remotest of areas. AEPS helps an individual to do basic banking transactions by using Aadhaar-linked withdrawals, cash deposits, or transfers from bank accounts.
The booklet maintains this immensely facilitated providing doorstep banking services and helped mitigate the hardships of the people due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Further, it says that 73.12 crore (92%) residents have linked Aadhaar with ration cards to avail ration through the Public Distribution System, 27.94 crore (91%) residents linked Aadhaar with cooking gas connections for LPG subsidy through PAHAL (DBTL), 100% of farmer-beneficiaries (11.9 crore) have done Aadhaar linking under the PM Kisan Yojana.
UIDAI also says that 57,000 Aadhaar kits are functional across the country through 165 active registrars and 484 active enrollment agencies. 13,000 village-level entrepreneurs working as banking correspondents have been permitted to undertake Aadhaar demographic updates, and this number will be increased to 20,000, the booklet says. 1.5 lakh postmen under India Post Payment Bank have also been approved to provide a mobile number update facility to Aadhaar holders.
Way ahead
The booklet says that going ahead, UIDAI will be concentrating on an ID that is kept updated for biometrics and other identity information all the time, further reducing Aadhaar authentication failure rates and have an increased focus on ease of delivery and user satisfaction. Other priorities of UIDAI would be resident centricity and ease of access, enhancing Aadhaar usage, strengthening the credibility of Aadhaar, upgrading the Aadhaar technology stack, and the international outreach of the Aadhaar architecture.
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