Aadhaar is free, clarifies govt; to look into complaints of centres charging fee

New Delhi: Despite repeated clarification that Aadhaar cards are free, it appears that many centres across the country are charging Rs 100-300 for enrolling people for the unique identification number.

Taking complaints into matter, the government has said that it will look into Aadhaar centres that have been charging fee for the free service.

"We will look into the matter," Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters when asked about complaints of Aadhaar centres charging fee for enrolling people.

Some Aadhaar enrolment centres are charging fee in the range of Rs 100-300 despite repeated clarification from Unique Identification Authority of India that no fee should be charged for it.

"Aadhaar is for free," UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey said.

Prasad said that Aadhaar generation has crossed the 111 crore mark. Aadhaar is required for availing benefits and subsidies granted by the government.

Aadhaar enrolment is carried out by 135 registrars and 612 agencies working at 47,192 enrolment centres.

Aadhar enrolment jumped to 7-8 lakh requests a day post demonetisation from 5-6 lakh requests a day previously. Over 47.8 crore Aadhaar cards have been generated since June 2014.

With PTI Inputs