Earlier this month, Govt. of India created ripples in the insurance sector, by mandating Aadhaar linking for all insurance policies. December 31st was the short deadline given, and it has unleashed a panic among among all policy holders.
Taking advantage of this panic, few scamsters are trying to steal valuable information of policyholders, by circulating fake messages to link Aadhaar, using text based facility.
LIC has taken notice of this mischief, and has asked all policyholders not to fall into the trap.
LIC: Do NOT Link Policies With Aadhaar Using SMS
There are 29 crore policyholders of LIC insurance plans, and last year, in India, total of 2.67 crore insurance policies were issued, out of which 2.09 crore belonged to LIC.
There are total of 54 insurance companies in India at this moment.
This explains the market share and the influence of LIC in the insurance market.
Taking advantage of this huge number, scamsters are trying to dupe policyholders by creating fake messages with LIC emblem, and asking the readers to send their Aadhaar numbers to a given mobile number.
LIC has issued a strict warning against such messages, and has asked all policyholders not to link Aadhaar with SMS, as this facility is still not available.
In a tweet posted on their official Twitter handle, LIC said that policyholders should always visit their nearest office to reveal any personal information.
Besides, as we cross-checked the LIC website, we found that although LIC is working on OTP based Aadhaar linking mechanism now, there is no existing facility to connect Aadhaar using mobile phones.
This confusion may have arised after telecom companies promised to provide OTP based Aadhaar linking system few weeks ago. However, this facility is not yet live.
Thus, if you are a policyholder, or you know someone from your family who is associated with LIC, do let them know about this warning.
Govt. Willing To Extend Aadhaar Deadline
Meanwhile, during the ongoing Aadhaar and protection of privacy case in Supreme Court, Govt has informed that they are willing to extend deadline for all Aadhaar-linking orders to March 31, 2017.
During the hearing, Centre informed the chief justice Dipak Misra:
“We are willing to extend the deadline for mandatory linking of Aadhaar to various services till March 31 next year,”
Deadline for linking mobile phones with Aadhaar is February 26th, while all other deadlines, including Aadhaar linking with bank accounts, insurance and other services is December 31.
As we just mentioned, such short deadlines is creating panic among all users of these services, as evident in the scam going on for policyholders.
Is Govt. in a hurry to implement Aadhaar regime across India? Shouldn’t the public be given more time and more choice?
Do let us know by commenting right here!