Now you can get THESE Aadhaar Services without internet: Check the step-by-step process

In order to file Income Tax Returns (ITR), the Aadhaar card seems to be an important document and it also becomes mandatory for other government schemes and other banking activities. Meanwhile,  the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has come up with “Aadhaar Services on SMS” for Aadhaar cardholders where services can be availed even without internet access. 

Users can get several Aadhaar facilities such as Virtual ID generation/retrieval and Aadhaar lock/unlock with the help of basic SMS availability.

In order to avail such facilities, users first need to send an SMS from their registered mobile number to 1947, and the format of the SMS changes as per requirements. Through the Aadhaar SMS facility, users can get Virtual ID Generation/Retrieval, Lock/Unlock Aadhaar number, enable or disable Biometric Lock and temporarily unlock biometrics. 

To Generate – Virtual ID 

GVID Aadhaar-Number-last-4-digits.

If your Aadhaar number is 1234-5678-9123, then your SMS should look like this: GVID 9123

To Retrieve – Virtual ID

RVID Aadhaar-Number-last-4-digits

To get One Time Password (OTP)

If you are using Aadhaar Number to get the OTP use this format: 

GET OTP-Aadhaar-NUMBER-last-4-digits

If you are using Virtual ID to get the OTP use this format:

If using Virtual ID: GETOTP-Virtual ID-NUMBER-last-6-digits

To Lock Aadhaar

To use this service, the user has to send the SMS two times in the given format:

SMS 1 : GET OTP-Aadhaar NUMBER-last-4-digits

SMS 2: LOCK UID-Aadhaar NUMBER-last 4-digits-OTP-6-digits

A similar process has to be followed for unlocking the Aadhar number. Send the SMS in the given format:

SMS 1: GET OTP-Virtual-ID-last-6-digits

SMS 2: UNLOCK UID-Virtual-ID-last-6-digits-OTP-6-digits