Aadhaar is a twelve-digit unique identity number that can be obtained voluntarily by all residents of India based on their place of residence, biometrics and demographic data. The data is collected by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), a statutory authority established in January 2016 by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, following the provisions of the Aadhaar Act, 2016.
Applicants to Aadhaar receive an Aadhaar UID Card used to identify a resident of India. However, following a series of Supreme Court rulings and provision of the Aadhar Act, it is not considered proof of Indian citizenship, domicile, address, date of birth, and age. It cannot be used as an identification document for international travel.
As of May 2023, more than 99.9% of India's adult population had been issued an Aadhaar, making it the world's largest biometric ID system. Aadhaar is also the basis for MOSIP, an open source identity system used by nation states, especially in the African region.
A new Aadhaar app, which replaced the former mAadhar app, was launched on 28 January 2026. This app allows users to digitally show, share, and verify their identity selectively, rather than tendering copies of their physical ID or quoting the unique number itself.
UIDAI officials claim that Aadhar have the discretion to both share what they desire and when. The requesting entity can tailor the QR codes to its requirements. The Aadhaar number is not stored by the verifiers. Credentials are only exchanged in a digitally-signed format. That detail matters, particularly under India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act.
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is a statutory body under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, created by the Government of India on July 12, 2016. UIDAI's mandate is to assign a 12-digit unique identification number to all residents of India. This system ensures that the number is linked to residents’ demographic and biometric data, including a photograph, ten fingerprints, and two iris scans, all stored in a centralized database.
Initially, the UIDAI was set up as an office under the Planning Commission of India in January 2009. It was later made an independent statutory authority to implement and oversee the Aadhaar project, which includes the creation, management, and maintenance of the UID database. The UIDAI is responsible for ensuring the number's integrity and security by verifying and authenticating it in real-time, preventing fraudulent activities. Since the first Aadhaar number was issued in September 2010, the UIDAI has expanded its scope, targeting to issue a unique ID to all residents in India. This unique number facilitates access to government services and reduces the likelihood of duplication or fraud.
History
Following the Kargil War in 1999, the Government of India constituted the Kargil Review Committee chaired by security analyst K. Subrahmanyam to examine national security concerns. The Committee submitted its report to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on 7 January 2000.
Among its recommendations was the phased issuance of identity cards, beginning with residents of border villages and later extending to all citizens in border states. In 2000, the Rangarajan Commission was established to review India's statistical system. In its August 2001 report, the Commission recommended the creation of a centralized database of citizens and the issuance of a unique identification number to each individual.
The report observed that India lacked a standardized population database capable of integrating information across multiple sources and suggested that a unique identification system would improve administrative efficiency. A Group of Ministers headed by L. K. Advani was formed to examine these recommendations. In May 2001, the Group endorsed the proposal for a “multi-purpose National Identity Card”, initially to be implemented in border areas. In September 2001, the Ministry of External Affairs proposed the introduction of mandatory national identity cards following reports of passport fraud arising from inadequate interlinking of passport databases.
In December 2003, the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2003 was introduced in the Lok Sabha. The amendment included a provision empowering the central government to compulsorily register citizens and issue national identity cards.
Establishment of UIDAI (2009–2013)
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) was established on 28 January 2009 through a notification of the Planning Commission (now NITI Aayog). On 23 June 2009, Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of Infosys, was appointed as its first chairperson with rank equivalent to a Cabinet minister.
In April 2010, the programme was formally branded as “Aadhaar” and its logo was unveiled. Nilekani stated that UIDAI would support legislation to safeguard data collected under the programme. In February 2012, UIDAI launched an online verification system enabling institutions to authenticate Aadhaar numbers electronically.
In November 2012, a Public Interest Litigation was filed in the Supreme Court of India by former Karnataka High Court judge K. S. Puttaswamy, challenging the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar scheme on grounds including privacy and lack of statutory backing. Around this time, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh launched an Aadhaar-linked Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme in 51 districts, aimed at transferring subsidies directly to beneficiaries’ bank accounts.
On 23 September 2013, the Supreme Court issued an interim order directing that no person should suffer for not possessing an Aadhaar number and clarified that the programme was voluntary at that stage.
Legislative enactment and judicial review (2016–2018)
On 3 March 2016, the Aadhaar Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services Bill, 2016 was introduced in Parliament as a Money Bill by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. The Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on 11 March 2016. Opposition parties criticised its introduction as a Money Bill, arguing that it limited the role of the Rajya Sabha.
On 24 August 2017, in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, the Supreme Court unanimously held that the right to privacy is a fundamental right under the Constitution of India.
In September 2018, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act, 2016, while restricting its mandatory use. The Court held that Aadhaar could not be required for opening bank accounts, obtaining mobile connections, or school admissions.
Subsequent developments
In 2018, UIDAI introduced face authentication as an additional mode of biometric verification, supplementing fingerprint and iris authentication.
In 2019, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed permitting the use of Aadhaar in place of a Permanent Account Number (PAN) for specified high-value cash transactions.
Bhudhaar
Government of Andhra Pradesh started Aadhaar based innovative first of its kind project called Bhudhaar to assign an 11-digit unique number for every land parcel in the state as part of the "land hub in E-Pragati Programme". Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu launched the programme on 20 November 2018 to streamline the land records. Union Government of India also implementing Unique Land Parcel Identification Number (ULPIN) Project with the reference from this Bhudhaar Project.
Bhuseva Authority, an inter-departmental committee was formulated to implement and its progress monitored in real time basis by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and all citizens using Core Dashboard (developed and managed by the Real Time Governance Society).
Any type of land parcel categories i.e. agriculture lands, rural properties & urban properties (like houses, house sites, and vacant lands) are managed by all land-related departments in the states. These are Revenue, Panchayat Raj, Municipal Administration, Registration, Survey & Settlements, Forest, Endowments, Wakf. Under the Land Hub core platform, these departments integrate their land-related services and issue a new Bhudhaar number to each land holding or property upon ownership change.
In general Land records consists of two types of data: textual data (like village name, name of land owner, survey number, extent, ID proof like Aadhaar, Voter ID or other related documents), and spatial data (data depicting the sketch of the land, its measurements (in links/metres/feet), adjacent fields, location on ground).
The Bhudhaar issuing process contains 2 stages. Firstly, a temporary Bhudhaar is assigned based on valid textual data of an agriculture land holding, rural or urban property. It begins with 99, and the following numbers are generated on a random basis only. There is no meaning to the 9 digits, but they form a unique ID for that property. A special series number is allocated to government lands, for example, 99.312.725.202., where "99" indicates that it is a temporary Bhudhaar.
Second, a permanent Bhudhaar is assigned once the spatial data is captured and linked to the textual data. The spatial data contains the measurement of the land and its resultant sketch (FMB), the location of the land on the ground along with geo-coordinates. To capture the measurement of land holding or a sub-division, the Andhra Pradesh Government uses the Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS) a state-of-the-art technology in surveying properties. Once the geo-coordinates captured are completed using CORS, the permanent Bhudhaar is assigned, and the first two numbers i.e., 99 in the temporary Bhudhaar are replaced with 28 (State Census Code).
Predominant uses
Direct Benefit Transfer
The Aadhaar project has been linked to welfare schemes and unemployment benefit schemes such as the domestic LPG scheme and MGNREGA. In these Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) schemes, the subsidy money is directly transferred to a bank account which is Aadhaar-linked. Previously, the direct-benefit transfer had been carried out via the National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) system, which did not depend on Aadhaar.
On 29 July 2011, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas signed a memorandum of understanding with UIDAI. The Ministry had hoped the ID system would help eliminate the loss of the subsidised kerosene and LPG. In May 2012 the government announced that it would begin issuing Aadhaar-linked MGNREGS cards. On 26 November 2012 a pilot programme was launched in 51 districts.
Under the original policy for liquefied petroleum gas subsidies, the customers bought gas cylinders from retailers at subsidised prices, and the government compensated companies for their losses. Under the current Direct Benefit Transfer of LPG (DBTL), introduced in 2013, customers had to buy at full price, and the subsidy would be then directly credited to their Aadhaar-linked bank accounts. This scheme, however, did not take off, and in September 2013 a Supreme Court order put a halt on it. Subsequently, the GOI constituted a committee to review the "Direct Benefits Transfer for LPG Scheme" to study the shortcomings in the scheme and recommend changes. The DBTL scheme was modified later as PAHAL by the new government in November 2014. Under PAHAL, subsidies could be credited to a purchaser's bank account even if he or she did not have an Aadhaar number. Official data show that cooking gas consumption during the January–June period grew at a slower 7.82%, which is nearly four percentage points less than the 11.4% growth in the same period last year.
The PAHAL scheme has covered 118.9 million of the 145.4 million active LPG consumers until March, as stated by the Petroleum Minister in the Parliament. The DBT has thereby become a "game changer" for India, claimed the Chief Economic Adviser to the Finance Ministry, Government of India, Arvind Subramanian, for in case of LPG subsidy, DBT had resulted in a 24% reduction in the sale of subsidised LPG, as "ghost beneficiaries" had been excluded. The savings to the government were to the tune of ₹127 billion (US$2.08 billion) in 2014–2015. The success of the modified scheme helped fuel marketing companies save almost ₹80 billion (US$1.31 billion) from November 2014 to June 2015, said oil company officials. The DBT for the public distribution system (PDS) will be rolled out in September 2015.
The government's own data, however, suggest that the cost of implementing the DBT for LPG was over a million dollars, a figure quite at odds with the savings figures that the government cites.
Prime Minister Modi has asked for the integration of all land records with Aadhaar at the earliest, emphasising at his monthly PRAGATI (Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation) meeting on 23 March 2016 that this was extremely important to enable monitoring of the successful implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana or crop insurance scheme.
Aadhaar-enabled biometric attendance systems
In July 2014 Aadhaar-enabled biometric attendance systems were introduced in government offices. The system was introduced to check the late arrival and absenteeism of government employees. The public could see the daily in and out of employees on the website attendance.gov.in. In October 2014 the website was closed to the public but as of 24 March 2016 is again active and open to public access. The employees use the last four digits (last eight digits for government employee registering as of August 2016) of their Aadhaar number and their fingerprints, for authentication.
Uses by government agencies
In November 2014 it was reported that the Ministry for External Affairs was considering making Aadhaar a mandatory requirement for passport holders. In February 2015 it was reported that people with an Aadhaar number would get their passports issued within 10 days, as it sped up the verification process by making it easier to check if an applicant had any criminal records in the National Crime Records Bureau database. In May 2015, it was announced that the Ministry of External Affairs was testing the linking of passports to the Aadhaar database.
In October 2014 the Department of Electronics and Information Technology said that they were considering linking Aadhaar to SIM cards. In November 2014 the Department of Telecom asked all telecom operators to collect Aadhaar from all new applicants of SIM cards. On 4 March 2015 a pilot project was launched allowing Aadhaar-linked SIM cards to be sold in some cities. The purchaser could activate the SIM at the time of purchase by submitting his Aadhaar number and pressing his fingerprints on a machine. It is part of the Digital India plan. The Digital India project aims to provide all government services to citizens electronically and is expected to be completed by 2018.