Aadhaar Bill: Understanding the fine details

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: Aadhaar Bill, 2016 was passed by the Lok Sabha on Friday after it was cleared by the Upper House the preceding day. It will help the government to ensure that subsidies and other benefits reach the needy directly cutting all the leakages in between.

Understanding Aadhaar Bill:

With the clearance of Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016, the government can now easily provide services to the targeted beneficiaries using Unique Identity Numbers (UANs) also known as Aadhaar which are already assigned to them.

Only a resident of India can enrol under the scheme.

Informing the Parliament, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that presently 97 percent of adults and 67 percent children have been enrolled under Aadhaar. Around 7 lakh people are being enrolled on a daily basis.

Finance Minister allayed fears of some members of House that Aadhaar can be used to poach private information saying it will only used for distributing benefits to the targeted population.

He said it’s not allowed to share biometric attributes, including finger prints and iris scans.

Jaitley added that private details can only be used  for national security and as per court orders.

The Aadhaar bill also mandates imprisonment of up to one years and a minimum fine of Rs. 10 lakh for any person extending unauthorised access to the centralised data-base, or for revealing any information stored in it.

The Aadhaar card can’t be used as citizenship proof but only as identity proof.The bill calls for the government to ask a person to apply for an Aadhaar number, if he doesn't have one, while providing alternative means of identification in the interim.