The government is looking for simplification these days. To make traceability more authentic and genuine, the government now wants to link a person’s SIM with the Aadhaar card. Aadhaar serves as an identity and address proof. The prime objective of linking SIM with Aadhaar Card is to weed out ghost users and curb the misuse of mobile phones for anti-social activities.
In few months, to get a new mobile connection and to retain the existing connection, producing your Aadhaar number will be made mandatory.
Earlier, the Home ministry had issues in accepting Aadhaar as a single source of verification, but now the UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) has been directed to generate Aadhaar numbers for more than 100 crore residents by December.
We like to think it’s the next December and till date the UIDAI has rolled out almost 70 crore Aadhaar numbers. Earlier, procuring cooking gas needed Aadhar Card but the Supreme Court has suspended it’s implementation owing to the poor generation of Aadhar Card.
Also the Aadhar card can now be linked with your bank account. Since everybody has a mobile connection (SIM Card) and sometimes more than two, the government feels tracking the SIM will be a strong verification factor. Just like the PAN card helps the Income Tax department in tracking and tracing the transaction details of an individual, the same way Aadhar will be used to trace the financial as well as social whereabouts of a person.
In a view to also monitor activity of foreigners in India, the government also proposes to issue Aadhar card to foreigners. This however is a great measure but the feasibility is still being debated over. So the data of the residents as well as foreign nationals will be at the finger tips for the government.
These kind of social identity numbers are common in other developed countries. With Aadhar card being roped in and made mandatory, it will surely enhance the transparency with the government departments. The scope for willful defaults and other crimes can be easily monitored and also curbed.
However one of the biggest threats in this is confidential data storage and retrieval. The online tampering is a major issue with many corporations. The government will have to set up a wing just to safeguard the data and facilitate timely retrieval too. It is advisable for the government not to use private players for storing public confidential data.
Another concern that plagues the telecom operators is that of individual multiple SIM usage. Procuring SIM is made easy with minimal number of documents and even the Telecom operators want to increase their telecom subscriptions. With differential and promotional offers in each network forces people to use those reduced price services. The Telecom operators must be first brought under the net of curbing ghost users and make reforms in ownership of SIMs.
Apart from all the other minus attention, linking SIM with Aadhaar is a good reform, unless like us, even you are not very happy with the photo clicked for the Aadhar card!
