UIDAI okays Aadhaar updation facility through CSC

In a major relief to those living in rural areas, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has allowed the Common Service Centre, an SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle) under the Ministry of IT and Electronics, to begin the Aadhaar updation facility at their 20,000 CSCs which operate as Banking Correspondents (BCs).

“To make Aadhaar updating easier for citizens, UIDAI has permitted CSCs, which are designated banking correspondents of banks, to offer Aadhaar update services. Around 20,000 such CSCs will now be able to offer this service to citizens,” tweeted Union Telecom, MEITY, and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

“I would like the CSC VLEs to start the Aadhaar work with responsibility and as per instructions issued by UIDAI in this regard...I am sure this facility will help a large number of the rural citizens to get Aadhar services closer to their place of residence,” Prasad said.

UIDAI has set the June deadline for the commencement of the work after CSCs with banking facilities to upgrade their required infrastructure and get other necessary approvals.

Earlier, the Aadhaar work through CSCs was discontinued in December 2018. Since then there has been a demand of village level entrepreneurs (VLEs) running over 3.5 lakh CSCs across India to start the Aadhaar enrolment work as they have invested in the Aadhaar kits and have trained manpower for the same.

Thanking the Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad for getting Aadhaar updation work restarted through CSCs, Tyagi said it would further strengthen the efforts of achieving the goals of “Digital India” as envisaged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. CSCs were earlier doing Aadhaar work and more than 20 crore Aadhaar were generated through CSCs across the country.

Highlighting the role of CSC BCs in these difficult times of COVID-19 pandemic, Tyagi said they are enabling citizens to get banking services close to their place of residence without the need to visit a bank branch. “Apart from 20,000 BCs, over 30,000 CSCs are delivering banking service using AePS (Aadhaar-enabled payment system). About 1.2 lakhs AePS transactions are taking place every day to the tune of around Rs.20 crore. This is helping the farmers, Jan Dhan account holders, pensioners, Ujwala beneficiaries in withdrawing the amount which has been transferred to their accounts by the government through DBT,” Tyagi.