In April 2023, there was a significant increase of over 19.3% compared to April 2022 in the number of authentication transactions carried out by Aadhaar holders. This indicates the growing digital economy and the widespread usage of Aadhaar in India, a press release has said.
The majority of these authentication transactions were conducted using fingerprints, followed by demographic and OTP-based authentications. Face authentication is also gaining popularity across various sectors as a convenient means of service delivery.
Despite Aadhaar saturation being almost universal among the adult population, the saturation level among all age groups has now reached 94.8%. This highlights the extensive reach and widespread adoption of Aadhaar among residents and the government. In April, over 15.44 million Aadhaars were updated based on residents’ requests.
The Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS) is playing a crucial role in promoting financial inclusion for individuals at the lower end of the income pyramid. In April 2023, AePS, along with a network of micro-ATMs, facilitated more than 200.6 million last-mile banking transactions.
Aadhaar e-KYC service continues to play a key role in the banking and non-banking financial services sectors by providing transparent and improved customer experience and helping in ease of doing business. More than 250.5 million eKYC transactions were carried out in April alone.
By the end of April this year, the cumulative number of Aadhaar e-KYC transactions exceeded 14.95 billion. Continued adoption of e-KYC is significantly reducing customer acquisition costs of entities like financial institutions and telecom service providers, among others.
According to the press release, Aadhaar serves as the cornerstone of India’s digital public infrastructure and a tool for effective governance. It plays a vital role in supporting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of enhancing the Ease of Living for residents through various initiatives such as e-KYC for identity verification, AePS for last-mile banking services, authentications, and Aadhaar-enabled Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) for seamless fund transfers.
These Aadhaar-based systems and services contribute to the overall objective of improving the Ease of Living by simplifying processes, ensuring transparency, and enabling efficient service delivery. By leveraging Aadhaar, the government aims to create a robust digital ecosystem that enhances convenience, accessibility, and effectiveness in governance, ultimately benefiting the residents of India.
More than 1,100 government schemes, programmes, and initiatives in the country run by both centre and states have been notified to use Aadhaar. The digital ID is helping various ministries and departments in the centre and at states improve efficiency, transparency, and the delivery of welfare services. During the past decade, Aadhaar has emerged as the main evidence of identity for Indian residents. It is used to avail government schemes and services. Residents who had got their Aadhaar issued 10 years ago and have never updated it since then are encouraged to get their documents updated.
India has a plethora of public service portals and platforms to better engage people and offer improved citizen experiences. Bhavishya 9.0, a portal for pensioners, was developed by the Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare (DoPPW) in collaboration with the State Bank of India (SBI). It incorporates various stand-alone portals from the Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare, providing multiple services on a single window, and enhancing the ease of living for central government pensioners.