Over half of India’s population now has an Aadhaar number, as the Nandan Nilekani-led Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is learnt to have generated over 60 crore such numbers, three weeks before the March 31 deadline set by the govt to reach this goal. By March 10, the UIDAI had generated and dispatched unique Aadhaar numbers to 600.7 million people.
“Aadhaar has become the fastest-growing app in the world. It has 600 million subscribers, which is more than the 450 million users on social messaging platform WhatsApp that was recently acquired by Facebook for a whopping $19 billion,” remarked a senior official close to the Aadhaar project.
Nilekani had steered the country’s IT bellwether Infosys Technologies from a startup to a major global player before joining the UPA government in 2009 to take on the ambitious task of assigning a unique identity to every Indian. The UID project faced a slew of controversies, criticism and bureaucratic obfuscation, but has managed to steer past them and meet its targets.
The Infosys co-founder was formally inducted as a primary member of the Congress party on Sunday in order to facilitate his maiden electoral foray in the coming Lok Sabha polls. Nilekani is contesting the polls from the Bangalore South parliamentary constituency, where he is pitted against Bhartiya Janata Party’s Ananth Kumar, who has held the seat since 1996.
In his five-year stint at Lutyens Delhi’s imposing Jeevan Bharti towers, Nilekani has managed to create an identity for over 600 million people, making them eligible for greater financial and socio-economic inclusion. This would serve as the backbone for UPA’s grand plan to directly transfer benefits to the bank accounts of poor households.
The gameplan has run into its fair share of trouble with the Supreme Court asking the government not to make Aadhaar a mandatory requirement for availing public services. The Cabinet also put the Aadhaar-based direct benefit transfer (DBT) regime for LPG cylinders on hold last month in the face of strident criticism by several Cabinet ministers about its ground-level implementation.
The government has, however, remained firmly committed to the larger vision of the UID project, deciding to immediately begin enrollments in the Hindi heartland of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar and Chhattisgarh. “Aadhaar is a platform for multiple applications. Direct benefits transfer for LPG cylinders is just one of those applications,” the official said.
The UIDAI is currently laying the groundwork to commence biometric enrollments of residents in these states, which takes its mandate beyond the 600-million mark originally set for it. Nearly 630 million residents, of India’s 1.21 billion population, have already been enrolled under the UID project and unique Aadhaar numbers are now being generated for 1.2 million people per day.
“Aadhaar has become the fastest-growing app in the world. It has 600 million subscribers, which is more than the 450 million users on social messaging platform WhatsApp that was recently acquired by Facebook for a whopping $19 billion,” remarked a senior official close to the Aadhaar project.
Nilekani had steered the country’s IT bellwether Infosys Technologies from a startup to a major global player before joining the UPA government in 2009 to take on the ambitious task of assigning a unique identity to every Indian. The UID project faced a slew of controversies, criticism and bureaucratic obfuscation, but has managed to steer past them and meet its targets.
The Infosys co-founder was formally inducted as a primary member of the Congress party on Sunday in order to facilitate his maiden electoral foray in the coming Lok Sabha polls. Nilekani is contesting the polls from the Bangalore South parliamentary constituency, where he is pitted against Bhartiya Janata Party’s Ananth Kumar, who has held the seat since 1996.
In his five-year stint at Lutyens Delhi’s imposing Jeevan Bharti towers, Nilekani has managed to create an identity for over 600 million people, making them eligible for greater financial and socio-economic inclusion. This would serve as the backbone for UPA’s grand plan to directly transfer benefits to the bank accounts of poor households.
The gameplan has run into its fair share of trouble with the Supreme Court asking the government not to make Aadhaar a mandatory requirement for availing public services. The Cabinet also put the Aadhaar-based direct benefit transfer (DBT) regime for LPG cylinders on hold last month in the face of strident criticism by several Cabinet ministers about its ground-level implementation.
The government has, however, remained firmly committed to the larger vision of the UID project, deciding to immediately begin enrollments in the Hindi heartland of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar and Chhattisgarh. “Aadhaar is a platform for multiple applications. Direct benefits transfer for LPG cylinders is just one of those applications,” the official said.
The UIDAI is currently laying the groundwork to commence biometric enrollments of residents in these states, which takes its mandate beyond the 600-million mark originally set for it. Nearly 630 million residents, of India’s 1.21 billion population, have already been enrolled under the UID project and unique Aadhaar numbers are now being generated for 1.2 million people per day.
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