Can Aadhaar change the Destiny of India?

Can Aadhaar change the Destiny of India?

Why not? Today when I was reading the news headlines in a national daily newspaper, I came across a news item that India may provide technical know how to small under developed and developing countries. After all the pioneer project of Aadhaar was launched in India by UIDAI and by know our engineers have graduated in the project having solved most of the roadblocks coming in the way of creating data base of more than 100 crores of residents. Now India is in a position to market its unique product that is Aadhaar Technology for a good price to other nations. In the meantime we will keep on improving our Aadhaar Technology day by day based on feedbacks, experiences, experiments and above all its utility in our daily life. In my opinion the time is ripe enough to revisit our aadhaar technology in such a way that we can make it user friendly without least interventions of government offices, enrollment centres. But, How can we do it?

Can Bank ATMs be converted into Aadhaar ATMs?

If you ask me this question, my answer is in yes. But it can be possible only if plastic smart Aadhaar Cards are issued with magnetic strip and chip technology which can be used on ATM machines with biometrics of the aadhaar card holder. In advanced countries the ATM like machines are being installed to dispense water, contraceptive condoms, gold coins and even foreign currency conversions. Use of ATM's in India has increased manifold and ATM machines can be used for delivery of various services in India. It will not be a difficult task for the engineers to convert ATM machines into ATM-cum-Aadhaar by replacing the Card Readers and installing the user friendly menu to access the Aadhaar database in similar way as these machines access the database of different Banks through centralized ATM switches. Only recently banks have allowed the ATM machines to update the Mobile Numbers on ATM machines itself before discarding their old SIM or Mobile Number. But in case we allow the updation of Aadhaars on ATM machines which are open 24x7x365 then Aadhaar Technology can become game changer as now a days Aadhaar is being linked to the Banking, Insurance, Employee, Income Tax, Medical, Online Shopping, IMPS and all other types of profiles including Crime Records. Presently an individual has either to physically visit of digitally visit the service providers for changing the linked mobile numbers which keep on changing whereas the Aadhaar ID remains the same from birth till death. And if mobile numbers are issued to only valid Aadhaar ID holders, I am sure that we can evolve technologies which can update the mobile numbers issued to Aadhaar Holders automatically in their Banking, Insurance, Employee, Income Tax, Medical, Online Shopping, IMPS and all other profiles including Crime Records. Strong political will power is required to implement such type of transparent technologies.

What updation facilities can be provided at ATM-cum-Aadhaar Machines:

Just imagine that you are visiting the ATM-cum-Aadhaar Machine on the way or near to your locality. I can just think of Aadhaar Menu appearing on the screen once you insert your smart plastic aadhaar card with bar code, magnetic strip and chip. The following illustration may help the software engineers to develop the proper secured software for such ATM-cum-Aadhaar Machines:

Welcome Mr. XYZ

Prove Identity by pressing the screen with your Right Thumb

Now put your Unique PIN

Insert your Date of Birth

Enable Web Camera 

The Machine can ask for any biometric like Right or Left Thumb, Middle finger or any other biometric enabled for exceptional cases like blind people, people with no arms or fingers. Authentication of biometrics will not only verify the identity of the Aadhaar Card Holder but also confirm that the person is alive on date of operation. Web Camera enabling will record the face of the individual operating the machine. Insertion of date of birth and its verification from database of Registrar of Births and Deaths will send signals if the user is a Minor or Major. The following screen may appear for updating Mobile Number and/or email ID of the user:

1. Update Mobile Number
2. Update Email ID

On pressing Update Mobile Number the machine may ask your present mobile number linked to Aadhaar and on entering the existing mobile number you may receive OTP on your existing mobile number. On entering the OTP machine may automatically fetch mobile numbers issued to you through your Aadhaar Card. ( Reliance Jio will be issuing the Mobile Numbers through Aadhaar Technology which will be pre-linked with your Aadhaar ID and in the near future the government may freeze all the SIMS/Mobile numbers which are not linked to Aadhaar IDs). Machine will display the list of mobile numbers, issued to the user as per Aadhaar database, as under:

• 98xxxxx324
• 80xxxxx456
• 99xxxxx786

Government is likely to limit the issue of more than 2 or 3 SIM cards/numbers to the residents to check crimes and in near future the mobile numbers will also become unique mobile numbers throughout the life of the user and will be automatically portable to any network as these will be linked with Aadhaar IDs. There may be limited version mobile numbers for Minors and other incapacitate persons and such limitations will come into force from the aadhaar database itself.

Now the user will be asked to select any of his/her mobile number for updation in Aadhaar and submit for updation. The machine will send OTP once again on the New Number to be update in Aadhaar and user will have to keep the new number accessible at the time of transacting the updation process. Once the user validates the entry through OTP the mobile number will get updated in his or her aadhaar. Validation is very important so as to rule out any mistake. Once the mobile number gets updated in Aadhaar then in the near future it may get automatcally updated in all your profiles with Banking, Insurance, Employee, Income Tax, Medical, Online Shopping, IMPS and all other profiles including Crime Records.

Similar will be the process for change in email ID except that the new email will be updated only after validation through link sent to new email Id by the Machine.

I think that Government of India should allow correction of gender through this process. Even the change or updation of address  should be allowed trough such ATM machines by just fetching the address details of the Head of the Family or Landlord by inserting the Aadhaar ID of the Head of the Family or Landlord. Machine may sent OTP to the linked mobile number of the Head of the family or Landlord and the user will have to obtain the same from him/her to validate the transaction.

As regards change in Name, Date of Birth in the aadhaar, it should not be permitted and needs to be synchronized with database of Registrar of Deaths and Births in such a way that daily updation of deaths in Digital Death Registers should send signals to Aadhaar which in turn will send signals to Banking, Insurance, Employee, Income Tax, Medical, Online Shopping, IMPS and all other profiles including Crime Records of the dead persons.

Similarly issuance of Physcially Handicapped certificates digitally linked to Aadhaar will change the profile status everywhere. It may take another 25 years for Prime Minister Modi's Digital India dream to come true.

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