Aadhaar Usage Drops By 50%; RBI, Govt. Now Push For QR Code Based Offline Aadhaar
UIDAI and Govt. needs to be concerned now, as usage of Aadhaar is dropped to alarming levels.
Ever since the Supreme Court struck down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act, and stopped private companies from storing Aadhaar data, some very interesting developments have happened.
First of all, usage of Aadhaar data has dropped to stunning levels – both using Aadhaar biometric for authenticating users, and the total number of new enrollments.
Should this be a warning sign? Of course, it is. That’s the reason RBI and Govt. are now pushing for the QR-code based offline usage of Aadhaar.
But it seems that the Supreme Court will take some more time to decide on this.
Aadhaar Usage Drops To Alarming Levels
As per the latest numbers available with the online dashboard of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), usage of Aadhaar has dropped substantially over the past month.
If we talk about enrollments for new Aadhaar, the number has dropped to 866,000 enrolments last month, from a high of 7.4 million in January and 2.2 million in October.
At the same time, the number of Aadhaar based authentications have dropped to 824 million in November, which was 1.12 billion in March. This is a drop of 27%.
If we talk about only e-KYC, which is IRIS/fingerprint based Aadhaar KYC, then the numbers have dropped to 154 million last month from a high of 370 million in March.
This is a 50% drop since March
Explaining the reasons for this alarming drop, an official from UIDAI said, “The high levels reported earlier this year were due to people linking their mobile phones and bank accounts to Aadhaar. Usage of Aadhaar by private agencies has also been curbed after the SC order. People using Aadhaar to receive government subsidies will continue to use it for the same and hence the authentication levels are expected to settle at about 800 million per month,”
There are 130 million people in India who don’t have Aadhaar as of now, and most of them are kids. Now, as linking of Aadhaar is not mandatory, as per the Supreme Court order, less people are opting for enrolling and use Aadhaar for linking their services.
RBI, Govt. Push for QR-Code Based Offline Aadhaar
As per fresh reports coming in, Govt. of India and Reserve Bank of India are meeting, and pushing for QR-code based offline Aadhaar in India.
After the Supreme Court verdict regarding non-mandatory usage of Aadhaar in September, we had reported about offline Aadhaar picking up steam.
As we reported earlier, QR Code and paper-based KYC are the main offline methods using which Aadhaa can be validated in future.
Now, RBI and Govt., both want that offline Aadhaar, mainly QR-code based Aadhaar be used for opening bank accounts, operating payment wallets and purchasing insurance covers.
Even private companies want the same, and they are asking Govt. to negotiate this with Judiciary – Aadhaar had made the process of authentications seamless, and easy. However, Paytm, PhonePe and other companies had to stop using Aadhaar for validating due to privacy issues.
Due to the same reason, rumors had floated that mobile SIMs will be disconnected, due to this reason. But TRAI had to intervene, and assure all that alternative KYC methods will be now used.
We will keep you updated, as more details come in.
