(Disclaimer: factual accuracy of the numbers is contested)
Very soon we will be having more than 100% Aadhaar enrolment in a majority of the states. Since the last Aadhaar Roundup Number 4 was way back in 2014, I am going to list out the outcomes of all those significant use cases of aadhaar.
PMJDY makes use of aadhaar in a big way: We all know PMJDY has been a major success. It has allowed govt to channel subsidies and improved self respect among people.
New Direct Benefit Transfer to save 14000 crore: We all know govt claims to have saved 57,000 between 2014 and 2017 crore which makes this 14,000 crore sum look paltry.
Indian govt launches biometric attendance system: More than 2 lakh employees of the central govt are making attendance daily using AEBAS. 45k employees are still outside the purview of this and hence may face action.
Aadhaar number to be included in service book: This measure has detected fake employees on the rolls of the govt esp in Kashmir.
Real estate transactions to be tracked via aadhaar: This has not been mandatory but it is optional.
Mobile connections to be linked with aadhaar numbers: 60% mobile connections(as on 3rd march 2018) and 17 crore PAN cards have been aadhaar linked.
Human-Less Banking: Even though automation will take away a few jobs it will benefit the economy by putting people into more productive employment.
Government to link all social schemes with aadhaar: More than 420 schemes of the central govt have made aadhaar mandatory and nearly 65 crore people have benefited. 3 lakh 44 thousand crore rupees has been transferred into the accounts of people using DBT mechanism. Govt claims to save 75k crore from this.
Government planning aadhaar based Health Scheme: While this has taken a long time to come to fruition it has recently been declared that Aayushman bharat will give cashless treatment upto 5 lakh to 50 crore or 10 crore households.
Transport Department to seed aadhaar number of vehicle owners and licenses: This is an ongoing exercise and aims to reduce duplication in driving licenses and stricter punishment for law breakers.
Indian city to use Aadhaar numbers to clean voter lists: Election Commission of India is going to link all aadhaar numbers with EPIC/Voter Cards. Nearly 33 crore aadhaar to voter card linkages have already been done.
India to launch biometric airport entry pilot: Several airports are using this mechanism to enter airports.
Marriage portals to firewall fake grooms: This and not only this Skype is using Aadhaar to authenticate its users.
Prisoners to be enrolled for aadhaar: All prisoners have been enrolled into aadhaar and in several instances it was not known that they were lodged in jails and upon receipt of their aadhaar at homes people have become aware that they in fact were lodged in jails and not dead as presumed earlier.
AIIMS launching portal to let people book beds online: E-hospital project and issuance of UHID has been a success and the dashboard shows every day progress.
Apart from all these several positives have come due to aadhaar. Children who were enrolled into aadhaar and subsequently lost and lodged in government child protection centres have been united with their parents due to aadhaar biometrics.
Aadhaar linkage to PAN and Mobile phones is raising eyebrows. Not only that Aadhaar to bank account linkage is causing people to protest the high handed measure. Nearly 87 crore bank accounts have been linked with aadhaar till date.
Apart from these successes aadhaar has found uses in delivering a variety of services that people make use of every day such as renting bikes, availing credit and investing in stock markets. Govt is trying to link aadhaar with diseases such as TB and AIDS so that it could be used as a tool for epidemiological studies. Related field of econometric studies at a granular level is going to glean a lot of new information.
