Aadhaar

About Aadhaar

Aadhaar number is a 12-digit random number issued by the UIDAI (“Authority”) to the residents of India after satisfying the verification process laid down by the Authority. Any individual, irrespective of age and gender, who is a resident of India, may voluntarily enrol to obtain Aadhaar number. Person willing to enrol has to provide minimal demographic and biometric information during the enrolment process which is totally free of cost. An individual needs to enrol for Aadhaar only once and after de-duplication only one Aadhaar shall be generated, as the uniqueness is achieved through the process of demographic and biometric de-duplication.

Aadhaar number is verifiable in an online, cost-effective way. It is unique and robust enough to eliminate duplicates and fake identities and may be used as a basis/primary identifier to roll out several Government welfare schemes and programmes for effective service delivery thereby promoting transparency and good governance. This is the only program of its kind globally, wherein a state-of-the-art digital and online Id is being provided free of cost at such a large scale to people, and has the potential to change the way service delivery functions in the country.

Aadhaar number is devoid of any intelligence and does not profile people based on caste, religion, income, health and geography. The Aadhaar number is a proof of identity, however, it does not confer any right of citizenship or domicile in respect of an Aadhaar number holder.

Aadhaar is a strategic policy tool for social and financial inclusion, public sector delivery reforms, managing fiscal budgets, increase convenience and promote hassle-free people-centric governance. Aadhaar can be used as a permanent Financial Address and facilitates financial inclusion of the underprivileged and weaker sections of the society and is therefore a tool of distributive justice and equality. The Aadhaar identity platform is one of the key pillars of the ‘Digital India’, wherein every resident of the country is provided with a unique identity. The Aadhaar programme has already achieved several milestones and is by far the largest biometrics based identification system in the world.

Aadhaar identity platform with its inherent features of Uniqueness, Authentication, Financial Address and e-KYC, enables the Government of India to directly reach residents of the country in delivery of various subsidies, benefits and services by using the resident’s Aadhaar number only.

Benefits
The Unique Identification number (Aadhaar), which identifies individuals uniquely on the basis of their demographic information and biometrics will give individuals the means to clearly establish their identity to public and private agencies across the country. It will also create an opportunity to address the existing limitations in financial inclusion. The Aadhaar can help poor residents easily establish their identity to banks. As a result, banks will be able to scale up their business level.
The process to get an Aadhaar will be circulated by the local media upon which residents need to go to the nearest Enrolment Camp to register for an Aadhaar.The resident primarily needs to carry certain documents which will be specified in the media advertisement.Upon registering for Aadhaar, residents will go through a biometric scanning of ten fingerprints and iris.They will then be photographed and given an enrolment number upon completion.Depending on the enrolment agency, residents will be issued an Aadhaar number within 60 to 90 days.
Aadhaar is a 12 digit individual identification number issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India on behalf of the Government of India.This number will serve as a proof of identity and address, anywhere in India.Any individual, irrespective of age and gender, who is a resident in India and satisfies the verification process laid down by the UIDAI can enrol for Aadhaar.Each individual needs to enroll only once which is free of cost.Each Aadhaar number will be unique to an individual and will remain valid for life.
Aadhaar-based identification will have two unique features: Universality, which is ensured because Aadhaar will over time be recognised and accepted across the country and across all service providers.Every resident's entitlement to the number.The number will consequently form the basic, universal identity infrastructure over which Registrars and Agencies across the country can build their identity-based applications.

Features of Aadhaar

Uniqueness : This is achieved through the process of demographic and biometric de-duplication. The de-duplication process compares the resident’s demographic and biometric information, collected during the process of enrolment, with the records in the UIDAI database to verify if the resident is already in the database or not. An individual needs to enrol for Aadhaar only once and after de-duplication only one Aadhaar shall be generated. In case, the resident enrols more than once, the subsequent enrolments will be rejected.

Portability : Aadhaar gives nationwide portability as it can be authenticated anywhere on-line. This is critical as millions of Indians migrate from one state to another or from rural area to urban centres etc.

Random Number : Aadhaar number is a random number devoid of any intelligence. Person willing to enrol has to provide minimal demographic along with biometric information during the enrolment process. The Aadhaar enrolment process does not capture details like caste, religion, income, health, geography, etc.

Aadhaar Usage

Government of India funds a number of social welfare schemes focused towards the poor and most vulnerable sections of society. Aadhaar and its platform offer a unique opportunity to the government to streamline their welfare delivery mechanism and thereby ensuring transparency and good governance.

For Governments, Service Agencies : The UIDAI issues Aadhaar number to residents only after de-duplicating their demographic and biometric attributes against its entire database. Aadhaar authentication enables elimination of duplicates under various schemes and is expected to generate substantial savings to the government exchequer. It also provides the government with accurate data on beneficiaries, enables direct benefit programs, and allows the government departments/service providers to coordinate and optimize various schemes. Aadhaar will enable implementing agencies to verify beneficiaries and ensure targeted delivery of benefits. All these activities will lead to:

Curbing Leakages through Targeted Delivery : Welfare programs where beneficiaries are required to be confirmed before the service delivery, stand to benefit from UIDAI’s authentication services. This will result in curbing leakages and ensuring that services are delivered to the intended beneficiaries only. Examples include subsidized food and kerosene delivery to Public Distribution System (PDS) beneficiaries, worksite attendance of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) beneficiaries, etc.

Improving Efficiency and Efficacy : With the Aadhaar platform providing accurate and transparent information about the service delivery mechanism, government can improve disbursement systems and utilize scarce development funds more effectively and efficiently including better human resource utilisation involved in the service delivery network.

For Residents : Aadhaar system provides single source online identity verification across the country for the residents. Once residents enrol, they can use the Aadhaar number to authenticate and establish their identity multiple times using electronic means. It eliminates the hassle of repeatedly providing supporting identity documents each time a resident wishes to access services such as opening a bank account, obtaining driving license, etc. By providing a portable proof of identity that can be verified through Aadhaar authentication on-line anytime, anywhere, the Aadhaar system enables mobility to millions of people who migrate from one part of the country to another.

FAQ

What is TOTP
  1. It is an one-time temporary password (OTP), that is generated by an algorithm and valid only for 30 seconds. Because of this time variable characteristic, it is called TOTP.
  2. TOTP is 8 digit long numeric string.
  3. TOTP is personal to the resident and is uniquely generated every 30 seconds for each resident separately. d.With time-based OTP, the TOTP validation server and token generation app(like mAadhaar) use their respective system times to generate OTPs. The TOTP algorithm assumes that the system times are synchronized.
TOTPs avoid a number of shortcomings that are associated with traditional SMS based OTP. The most important shortcoming that is addressed by TOTPs is that resident will not be dependent on mobile network for SMS delivery. Generating and sending OTP requires users to go through a completely unrelated workflow.
TOTP is generated in mobile application like mAadhaar. However, the Client mobile device’s time should be in sync with IST time-zone.
  1. Download mAadhaar android mobile application
  2. Create new resident profile.
  3. Navigate to TOTP page view, your TOTP should be visible and is valid for 30 seconds.
As per gazette notification of Ministry of Finance, dated 1st June 2017, Individuals are required to provide Aadhaar number for linking all their bank accounts before 31st Dec 2017. For residents not having Aadhaar it is suggested that they get themselves Enroled to get an Aadhaar.
For NRIs it is suggested that they disclose their non-resident status with proof to their bank. For the status of account becoming in-operational only the relevant banks shall be able to give response.
As per gazette notification of Ministry of Finance, dated 1st June 2017, Aadhaar will be sought for all transactions for an amount INR 50,000 or above.
Aadhaar is essentially a paperless online anytime-anywhere identity assigned to a resident to cover his/her entire lifetime. The verification of his identity is done online with the help of authentication devices which connect to UIDAI’s Central Identity Repository and return only a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response to the basic query-“Is the person who he/she claims to be?” based on the data available with UIDAI. The Aadhaar authentication service is fully functional and in use in several service delivery schemes across the country. The Aadhaar Card or the e-Aadhaar (electronic copy of Aadhaar) are essentially given to residents to know their own Aadhaar, but are only the first step towards the actual use of the online id as explained in the preceding para.
Section 139AA of the Income-tax Act, 1961 as introduced by the Finance Act, 2017 provides for mandatory quoting of Aadhaar / Enrolment ID of Aadhaar application form, for filing of return of income and for making an application for allotment of Permanent Account Number with effect from 1st July, 2017. It is clarified that such mandatory quoting of Aadhaar or Enrolment ID shall apply only to a person who is eligible to obtain Aadhaar number. As per the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, only a resident individual is entitled to obtain Aadhaar. Resident as per the said Act means an individual who has resided in India for a period or periods amounting in all to one hundred and eighty-two days or more in the twelve months immediately preceding the date of application for enrolment. Accordingly, the requirement to quote Aadhaar as per section 139AA of the Income-tax Act shall not apply to an individual who is not a resident as per the Aadhaar Act, 2016.

Downloaded Aadhaar or e-Adhaar carries Name, Address, Gender, Photo and Date of Birth details of the Aadhaar holder in similar form as in Printed Aadhaar letter. The e-Aadhaar also contains date of Aadhaar generation & date of e-Aadhaar download. The downloaded Aadhaar or e-Aadhaar is a digitally signed document by UIDAI as per IT Act, 2000 which provides for legal recognition of electronic records with digital signatures.

Hence Downloaded Aadhaar /e-Aadhaar is a valid and secure electronic document which should be treated at par with printed Aadhaar letter.

For any online update request, including updation of mobile number, resident should already have an active number registered with UIDAI where person can receive OTP SMS and authenticate himself/herself. Otherwise you would need to visit nearest UIDAI permanent Enrolment centre.
Presently there is no Policy to give up Aadhaar. However Aadhaar holders can secure their Biometric Authentication as per need by locking or unlocking Biometrics using "Lock/Unlock Biometrics” functionality at UIDAI official website "resident.uidai.gov.in"
As per the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, only a resident who has resided in India for a period or periods amounting in all to 182 or more in the 12 months immediately preceding the date of application for enrolment.