Addhar now covers about 93% of adult residents in India: UIDAI

About 93 per cent of the adult residents in the country have voluntarily acquired and are in possession of Unique Identity  'Aadhar' and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UDAI) is now focusing on child enrolment, besides mopping up remaining persons, in order to achieve universal coverage.

UIDAI, which issued the first Aadhar number on 29 September 2010, has till date claims to have generated more than 926.8 million Aadhars in five years.

This success has been possible due to people's voluntary quest to empower themselves with the unique identity that is portable and authenticable online anywhere, anytime on a digital platform, the agency said in a release.

According to UIDAI, the Aadhar identity cannot be faked and hence is most ideal for targeted delivery of direct benefits under various welfare schemes and programmes, which have now became a dream come true.

Aadhaar is proving itself as a strategic policy tool for social and financial inclusion, increasing convenience and promoting hassle-free people-centric governance, it added.

Out of the 24 states/UTs where UIDAI has been mandated to enroll and issue Aadhar numbers, it is found that 16 states/UTs have more than 100 per cent adult population saturation with Delhi on the top with 128 per cent, followed by Himachal Pradesh (111 per cent), Andhra Pradesh and Telangana (111 per cent), Punjab (110 per cent), Kerala and Haryana (109 per cent each), Chandigarh and Sikkim (107 per cent each), Jharkhand, Goa and Puducherry (106 per cent each),Tripura (105 per cent), Rajasthan (103 per cent) and Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra (101 per cent).

Five states/UTs have above 90 per cent adult saturation with Andaman and Nicobar Islands (97 per cent), Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh (96 per cent each), Uttarakhand (93 per cent) and Uttar Pradesh (91 per cent).

Three states have above 80 per cent adult population saturation with Gujarat (89 per cent), Daman and Diu (82 per cent) and Bihar (80 per cent).

In all in states/UTs assigned for the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), Aadhar saturation among adult population is 98 per cent.

In other 12 states/UTs, which are being covered by RGI for enrolment, has an overall 76 per cent saturation with Lakshadweep (109 per cent), Dadra and Nagar Haveli (103 per cent), West Bengal (89 per cent), Odisha and Tamil Nadu (88 per cent each), Manipur (65 per cent), Nagaland and Jammu and Kashmir (63 per cent each), Arunachal Pradesh (50 per cent) and Mizoram (46 per cent). In two of the RGI states, namely Assam and Meghalaya, there are some local issues which have resulted in low saturation, UIDAI noted.

There are 18 states/UTs in total having more than 100 per cent Aadhar adult population saturation. UIDAI attributed the more than 100 per cent Aadhar generation to the fact that the population figures are based on the Census of 2011, while Aadhar are generated to the real population which has increased by 2015.

Migratory population from other states could also enroll in these states/UTs with more than 100 per cent Aadhar adult population saturation. This, in a country like India, could also lead to issue of Aadhar IDs to migrants from neighbouring countries as well.