27 March 2018
Aadhaar means foundation or base. Aadhaar number scheme is now being claimed as a medium for providing Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT). Before you jump in and say we always complain about the Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Government, Aadhaar is a grand success et al; let us first understand that Aadhaar was not Modi’s brainchild. It was not even former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s brainchild. The roots of Aadhaar runs much farther.
Birth of the concept
It has its root in Kargil War. Under the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Government, a Kargil review committee was formed under K Subrahmayam to study the then state of National Security. The Committee recommended creation of Government issued identity cards to people living in border states to eliminate and separate infiltrators from the citizens on priority basis.