The government has issued a public statement announcing that over 1 crore (10.97 million) mobile numbers were seeded in Aadhaar following requests from residents in the month of February.
Linking of mobile numbers with Aadhaar
The linking of mobile numbers with Aadhaar jumped 93 per cent in February from 56.7 lakh (5.67 million) registrations in January, according to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).
“Over 10.97 million mobile numbers were seeded in Aadhaar following requests from residents in the month of February 2023, a jump of more than 93 per cent over the previous month,” read the statement.
Linking of Pan number with Aadhaar is one of the major drivers that pushed the growth of seeding mobile numbers with Aadhaar.
Till date 90 crore Aadhaar holders are estimated to have linked their mobile numbers with their unique ID.
Benefits
The UIDAI has been encouraging the Aadhaar – mobile number linkage for better and effective communication while availing welfare services and accessing multitude of voluntary services.
The jump in numbers is indicative of the government’s continuous encouragement, facilitation, and residents’ willingness to keep their mobile number updated for availing various services.
Nearly, 1700 Central and State social welfare direct benefit transfer (DBT) and good governance schemes have been notified for use of Aadhaar.
Growing adoption and usage
There is a growing adoption and usage of Aadhaar across sectors in India.
For example, Aadhaar authentication transactions increased by 13 per cent to 226.29 crore in February alone.
This is a jump from over 199.62 crore transactions executed in January.
UIDAI has recorded 9,255.57 crore Aadhaar authentication transactions cumulatively till February 2023.
A majority of the authentications transaction numbers were carried out via fingerprint, followed by demographic and OTP.
e-KYC transactions
Aadhaar e-KYC service continues to play a great role for banking and non-banking financial services by providing transparent and improved customer experience, and helping in ease of doing business.
More than 26.79 crore e-KYC transactions were carried out this February.
Adoption of e-KYC has reduced customer acquisition cost of financial institutions, telecom service providers and others.
Cumulatively, Aadhaar e-KYC transactions have gone past 1,439.04 crore by the end of February.
PM Modi’s vision of Digital India
Aadhaar has been playing a key role in supporting Prime Minister Modi’s vision of Digital India, and enabling ease of living for residents.
It has helped in the form of AePS for last mile banking, Aadhaar enabled DBT for direct fund transfer, e-KYC for identity verification, or authentications.
During the past decade, Aadhaar number has emerged as a proof of identity of residents in India who can avail several government schemes and services.
Decade-old Aadhaar has to be updated
Those who had got their Aadhaar issued 10 years ago and have never updated after that are encouraged to get their documents updated.
Deputy director general of UIDAI Regional office Sumnesh Joshi said that camps would be organized at the panchayat level to facilitate residents in updating Aadhaar cards issued more than 10 years ago.
‘Document update’ campaign
“Residents can also carry out the document update on the UIDAI website, and it is free till June 14,” Joshi said.
He made the comments during an ongoing ‘document update’ campaign wherein residents who were issued Aadhaar cards 10 years ago and have not updated their address are being urged to upload documents afresh.
He spoke to Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant about strengthening the enrolment ecosystem, the issue of new adult enrolment (18 plus), and document verification using the state portal.
He urged the CM to promote mAadhaar and the use of Aadhaar QR code.
The CM said that the state is going to have an Aadhaar-based direct bank transfer (DBT) and use Aadhaar authentication for beneficiary identification.