Nearly all who got Aadhaar numbers already had valid ID proofs
GN Bureau | June 3, 2015
One of the justifications for Aadhaar, the unique identity project, was to provide an authorised identification to people who did not have any. In India, a vast number of people, it is believed, do not have any ID papers, and UID would give them one, even if it would add an extra paper for many who already had one (driving licence, passport, ration card, PAN card etc).
Indeed, according to the 2010 Strategy Overview (Click here) of the UIDAI, “an inability to prove identity is one of the biggest barriers preventing the poor from accessing benefits and subsidies”.
This, however, turns out to be a dubious justification for the humongous and costly project. Replying to an RTI query, the UIDAI has said that only 2.19 lakh Aadhaar numbers (out of 83.5 crore issued so far) have been issued through the ‘introducer’ system, that is, to people who did not have any ID papers at all. [The reply attached below] For the rest of 83.4 crore-plus people, Aadhaar was not needed, not at least for the identity purpose.
[The Aadhaar enrolment process requires an applicant to submit two valid IDs, or go through the “introducer system”. In this option, an applicant without ID can enrol for an Aadhaar number through an introducer who is authorised by the registrars for this purpose.]
The RTI application was filed in April 2015 by Ujjainee Sharma and Trishna Senapaty, and the reply from the deputy director and CPIO of UIDAI came the same month.
It seems the project started out with a faulty assumption. On the other hand, of course, a large number of the poor in India, living in difficult terrain or far-flung places, are without any identity documents. But then the RTI reply indicates that they are yet to be reached out, and “one of the biggest barriers preventing the poor from accessing benefits and subsidies” is yet to be dismantled. Either way, a debate is called for.
The extraordinary transaction volumes and value (₹29.82 Lakh crore in August 2026 alone) of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) have made it not only an Indian success story, but a global one. In 2024, UPI accounted for nearly 49% of the world’s real-time payment transaction volume, with more th
Diplomacy is akin to an art, wherein the summitry, conflict resolution and negotiations form apt constituents of the entire context of deal making and “playing for keeps” in the international arena. The Xi-Trump summit in Washington last week, in which the American president broke all conside
Moving to Delhi-NCR for education can be an exciting experience for students from Northeast India. It gives us a chance to meet new people, experience a different culture and become more independent. But living away from home also comes with challenges that people who have not experienced them may not al
The government has reduced the Basic Customs Duty (BCD) on major imported crude edible oils with a view to moderating domestic edible oil prices, providing relief to consumers and mitigating inflationary pressures arising from the sharp increase in international edible oil prices.
In his opening address at the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi on September 12, prime minister Narendra Modi did something India`s diplomacy has been building towards for three years: he moved the ‘Voice of the Global South’ from a slogan to a work plan. Addressing the leaders, he argued that t
The Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY), a welfare scheme which covers approximately 45 crore beneficiaries across India, provides cashless health cover of Rs. 5 lakh per family per year. It is the largest health insurance scheme which helped crores of poor families by reducing out-of-pocket expend
