Very few Indians didn’t have ID proof before Aadhaar

Just 0.3% of the 840 million Indians with the 12-digit biometric-based unique identification number didn’t have any identity documents before they got an Aadhaar card, government data show.

Updated on: Jun 13, 2015, 01:11:52 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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At its inception, India’s ambitious Aadhaar programme promised to provide a registered identity to people pushed to the margins of society, so they could prove they existed. Six years later, that idea seems to have fallen flat.

Just 0.3% of the 840 million Indians with the 12-digit biometric-based unique identification number didn’t have any identity documents before they got an Aadhaar card, government data show.

The programme aims to help citizens tap into government and financial services while minimising bureaucratic hassles and thwarting corrupt officials who stuff welfare databases with fake names and steal money meant for the poor.

People can enrol for Aadhaar in two ways. They can submit authenticated documents to establish their identity and place of residence. These include an array of identity proofs people already have, such as voter cards, passports, ration cards, driver’s licences and PAN cards.

The second option is going through an “introducer” system in which an Aadhaar number holder authenticates the credentials of an applicant. This means that a person can get an Aadhaar card without possessing any other documents.

“The introducer system was termed a way out to provide an identity document to a large number of Indians who don’t have it at their place of residence,” says Reetika Khera of IIT-Delhi, who has in the past questioned the efficacy of the project worth Rs 30,000 crore.

Now, a government response to an RTI application by Ujjainee Sharma and Trishna Senapaty shows that of the 840 million Indian residents with Aadhaar, just 219,000 got the unique number through the “introducer” mechanism.

This means 99.7% Aadhaar holders have acquired one more identity card, which does not have any public service utility right now.

The identification project, one of the previous UPA government’s flagship programmes, has been riddled with controversies, with the Supreme Court repeatedly asking the Centre to not make Aadhaar mandatory and a bunch of petitions against the disputed biometric data collection process.

UIDAI officials, however, counter the argument against Aadhaar, saying the system would plug leakages in delivery of government schemes and subsidies.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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