Govt ready to give Aadhaar legislative support, signals Jaitley

New Delhi: Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Friday signalled that the government is ready to offer legislative backing to Aadhaar, a move that will enable universal usage of the unique identity number that has been clouded by concerns that it may violate citizens’ privacy.

Most of the government’s social security schemes and digital initiatives are critically dependent on use of the Aadhaar number. Uncertainty has surrounded the project after the Supreme Court restricted the use of the number until a constitutional bench delivers its verdict on a bunch of cases challenging the mandatory use of Aadhaar in government schemes and rules on the issue of privacy violation.

“We can’t have a situation where Aadhaar is acceptable for certain measures to be adopted by the government, but not acceptable for other kinds of measures,” Jaitley said at the Delhi Economics Conclave.

“There will have to be a universal standard to be adopted. I am quite certain that the viewpoint of the government will be placed before the court. And, if necessary, a draft legislation is already ready. That is a step which at some stage the government can take,” he said.

“Both options of being in court and before the legislature will always be open to the executive,” he added.

Explicitly backing Aadhaar, Jaitley added, “Aadhaar and the JAM trinity are here to stay.”

JAM is short for the Jan Dhan Yojana, under which the government wants every household to have access to a bank account; Aadhaar; and mobile phones.

In an interim order on 15 October, the Supreme Court permitted the use of the Aadhaar number for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Jan Dhan Yojana, payment of pensions by central and state governments, and the Employees’ Provident Fund Scheme, in addition to the public distribution system and the distribution of cooking gas and kerosene.

It introduced an element of uncertainty for other flagship government programmes such as biometric attendance for government employees, digital certificates, e-KYC (know your customer) initiative for opening bank accounts and the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority’s plan to allow online opening of accounts under the National Pension System.

Speaking at a Mint event on moving towards a cashless economy earlier in the day, Nandan Nilekani, former chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), made a case for Aadhaar receiving legislative backing. “Ideally, the government should pass a law to back Aadhaar,” he said.

Nilekani reiterated that Aadhaar is here to stay.

Jaitley said Aadhaar can also help the government in its drive against tax evasion.

“It is not merely pensions, scholarships, LPG, kerosene, food, MGNREGS or property transactions where Aadhaar is issued. I think the enormity of this in taxation matters also has to be analysed. It can lead to a large amount of savings. It can prevent a large amount of evasion,” he said.

Though UIDAI was set up in 2009, it operates without any legislative backing. This is because the National Identification Authority of India bill, 2010, tabled by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government to give statutory backing to Aadhaar, was rejected by the parliamentary standing committee on finance headed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yashwant Sinha.

Despite concerns that the Aadhaar project may not receive the backing of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government that came to power in May last year, Aadhaar received a fresh lease of life last year after it got the support of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and became a key component of the NDA government’s direct benefits transfer and Digital India drive.

More than 930 million Aadhaar numbers have been issued so far and its coverage is expected to cross 1 billion by March 2016.

Giving legal backing to Aadhaar would be a welcome move, said N.C. Saxena, a former member of the National Advisory Council.

“It is a good idea. Aadhaar is a good scheme. A large number of poor will benefit directly from the government’s social security schemes with the help of Aadhaar. The government should give it legal backing at the earliest,” he said.