The year is ending with an Aadhaar usage boom in the country with a record number of 156 crore authentications done this month till December 29, the highest-ever monthly figure since the unique ID’s inception. The figure is expected to touch 170 crore for the entire month, a senior government official told News18.com.
Authentication is the number of times Aadhaar is used by a person to get a service or government benefit. The highest-ever monthly figure for Aadhaar authentication earlier was 146 crore in September this year. It had slipped below 100 crore during the second Covid-19 wave in April and May, which means the December figure could be a 70% jump from that time.
Around 131 crore people in India presently have an Aadhaar number, implying that people may have used the number more than once to avail a service or benefit.
Out of 156 crore Aadhaar authentications this month so far, a record number of 28 crore were e-KYC authentications, showing high digital usage as well. Over 87% of current and savings bank accounts in India are presently seeded with Aadhaar, as per latest data.
An Aadhaar authentication means the Aadhaar number being used in each instance to correctly identify the beneficiary of a scheme and electronically transfer the benefit to their bank account or in kind.
The government has linked all welfare schemes and services to Aadhaar over the last few years for leakage-free delivery. In fact, the government claims to have saved Rs 2.2 lakh crore through the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT)-Aadhaar mechanism since Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 and the model was rolled out in full scale.
Nearly 311 central welfare schemes of 54 ministries come under the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) platform using Aadhaar. The PM-Kisan Nidhi scheme for farmers is based on the Aadhaar platform in which nearly 10 crore farmers are being transferred Rs 2,000 each after every four months. Further, the PM Ujjwala Yojana and the PM Garib Kalyan Yojana, in which free food grains are being distributed to the poor, also use the Aadhaar platform.
The government also recently brought in a law to voluntarily link voter ID cards with Aadhaar to clean up electoral rolls and provide convenience to the voter to change their ID card when they change locations in the country.
Covid-19 vaccinations are also using the Aadhaar platform, contributing to the rise in authentications. PM Modi on multiple occasions has termed the Aadhaar-based DBT scheme as a game-changer to cut out corruption and ensure people got benefits even in the times of lockdown during Covid-19.
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