125 crore Indians have Aadhaar: UIDAI

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which serves as the issuing authority for Aadhaar unique identification numbers (UIDs) and cards, has achieved yet another milestone under its ongoing 'Aadhaar Project'.

According to the latest statement provided by the Ministry of Electronics & IT, the government agency has crossed the 125 crore mark in terms of Aadhaar saturation across the country.

It means out of around 136 crore total population (estimated) of the country, 125 crore, i.e. 91.5% residents of India now have a 12-digit unique identification number.

At present, UIDAI claims to receive about 3-4 lakh Aadhaar updates request every day and have recorded close to 331 crore successful Aadhaar updates (biometric and demographic) to date.

In fact, the residents of the country are more inclined to keep their details in Aadhaar updated, added the statement.

The achievement comes with the rapidly increasing use of Aadhaar as the primary identity document by Aadhaar holders which is truly evident from the fact that Aadhaar-based authentication services have been used close to 37,000 crore times since inception.

Implemented under the UPA rule in 2010, Aadhaar aimed to provide every Indian with a unique identification number to avail benefits offered by the government.

UIDAI was mulling to ease the process of 180 days mandatory waiting period for issuing Aadhaar card to Non-Residents Indians (NRIs). Soon NRIs with Indian passports will be able to obtain 12 digits biometric identification within a few days of their arrival in the country.

Earlier this month, the tax department had mandated linking of PAN with Aadhaar to avoid any discontinuation in banking services. The deadline to link PAN with Aadhaar was extended till December 31 by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT).

Apart from Aadhaar, India has around 102.6 crore active mobile users, 42 crore PAN holders and 6.6 crore Passport holders.