Over Rs 1 crore fraudulently withdrawn from banks using Aadhaar: MoS Finance

Admitting fraudulent withdrawal using Aadhaar number, the government said that there had been six incidents of such happening involving money around Rs 1.5 crore from banks.

"As per data reported by Public Sector Banks (PSBs), there have been incidents of money being fraudulently withdrawn from bank accounts using the customers' Aadhaar number in a few banks," Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla told Rajya Sabha in a written reply.

He further said that the government has taken steps to prevent such cases and action against those responsible for the reported cases.

Two cases of fraudulent mapping of UIDAI numbers were reported in Bank of India involving a sum of Rs 1.37 crore, another two cases surfaced in Syndicate Bank involving Rs 2.26 lakh, outlines ET report.

Shukla blamed banks for not properly mapping Aadhaar number and exercising precautions. Now banks are warned to step up inspection and initiate disciplinary action against responsible staff.

This is one of the first instances where the government has admitted Aadhaar misused. Earlier, the government had denied any presence of loopholes or misuse of it.

Last month, a journalist of The Tribune has got unrestricted access to Aadhaar details of more than a billion citizens in just Rs 500. It had details such as name, address, postal code (PIN), photo, phone number and email. After payment of additional Rs 300, the journalist was provided with software to have easy access to print Aadhaar card of any individual. The journalist was made an Enrolment Agency Administrator for CSC SPV without any authentication.

Terming the report of a data breach as ‘misreporting’, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has denied any data breach in Aadhaar security.

However, the government is planning to use Aadhaar in many more projects. It is planning to use it in National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS), dubbed as Modicare, claimed to be the world’s largest health cover, to weed out fake treatment.