By SiliconIndia | Monday, 27 April 2015, 04:37 Hrs
BENGALURU: India’s Aadhaar card, authorized by Unique Identification Authority of India which gives unique identity to all the residents of the country, has now become the world’s leading biometric identification program, as the number of such cards reached around 82 crore mark in April, as reported by ToI.
The multipurpose identification cards generated by Government of India Enrolment are now being held by 81.87 crore citizens of the country, the number which is far ahead compared to 15 crore registrations in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) biometric database in the U.S.
As the number of enrollments continue to increase the program is almost certain to be the largest of its kind in the world. More than 67 percent of the country's 121 crore population possess the card, which proved that the brilliant efforts put in by Nandan Nilekhani’s turned out to be a huge success.
NDA is probably glad to have dumped the idea of scrapping Aadhar. However the former chairman of UIDAI, Nandan Nilekani explained the merits of biometric ID system to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who in fact used it as a major tool to control subsidy leakages and carry out financial inclusion programs such as Jan Dhan Yojana.
Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan told TOI, "It is a very scientific and useful instrument. Although, we have not made it mandatory for the Aadhaar card for claiming subsidies, our experience has been positive."
Ashok Gulati, Infosys chair professor on agriculture at ICRIER states, "Aadhaar has been useful to create basic information in India. But to make it a game changer, it needs to be linked to Jan Dhan accounts while scaling up DBT."