aadhaar

All those who draw pension from the Employees  Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) under the Employees’ Pension Scheme, 1995 must submit a 'life certificate' attested by a gazetted officer by November 30 each year to continue receiving pension. Those who fail to do face the prospect of having their pension withheld until the submission of the certificate. The entire process involved had come under fire for being very time consuming and inconsiderate of the needs and health conditions of old and ailing pensioners who had to wait in long queues to submit the life certificate. Pensioners who have moved locations after…

The Rajya Sabha has listed The Aadhaar and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2018 for consideration and passage in the budget session of February 2019. Whether it will indeed be taken up, or whether it will merely lapse and require reintroduction in the next Parliamentary session hosted by the new government remains to be seen, but in any case this is a law, developments related to which have been closely watched by banking entities, telecom companies, fintech businesses and activists. So, why have amendments to the bill been such a contentious issue and how does it really impact us as citizens? The…

Activists skeptic about Waste-to-Energy plants The waste processing area in Chikkanagamangala will soon get a waste-to-energy plant. The MoU for this was signed early this year. Solid Waste Management Activists from the city have upped their ante against the proposal. They say lower calorific value of the waste will make the plant unviable and would lead to its failure. They fear that the push being given to segregation at source would be derailed. However, BBMP Commissioner Manjunath Prasad says it can be adopted to Indian conditions, and segregation of waste at source will not be stopped. Meanwhile in a written…

It is 4:15 a.m. and this is the scene at the gates of the Samta Nagar Post Office in Kandivali East, Mumbai. Men (mostly) just hanging around on the street, doing pretty much nothing. Chances are, they’ve done this before, but not early enough… the reason for this repeat visit. As I approach the group, Hukam Singh greets me. We were among the unlucky ones, not in the “first 20” of the previous morning. “Madam ka naam lick do bhai… athara” (write madam’s name brother… eighteen), said one. Yeah! I was in the first 20. This is probably the scene at…

The jokes on Facebook and Whatsapp have been relentless -- some even gross, indicating the blockage of various bodily functions because they have not been linked to Aadhaar! Notwithstanding those, or the more serious concerns and critiques raised by scores of individuals, the government remains steadfast in its mission of mandating UID-linked verification of citizens for every scheme or facility that they avail. While several petitions against the statutory linking of Aadhaar with various essential services and schemes is now awaiting a ruling from the highest court of the country, mobile phone inboxes of consumers continue to be flooded with…

The increasing emphasis by the government on the Aadhaar framework as the basis of a developing social security net for the citizen makes it ever more relevant and important to have. Despite Supreme Court rulings to the contrary, the Central and several state governments have made Aadhaar mandatory for citizens to avail a range of services and to get benefits of various government schemes. Even the Union Budget presented by Arun Jaitley on February 1st indicated an obvious push for Aadhaar, with recommendations for various facilities linked to the unique identification number. Yet, the ordinary citizen continues to have privacy…

In the wake of the Indian government’s decision to demonetise currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 from the market, and ensuing restrictions on withdrawing money from banks, the common man has had to grapple with considerable liquidity challenges. More than three weeks since the announcement, those primarily using cash as trading currency are still facing a crunch. ATM queues, paucity of lower denomination notes, confusion over exchange and withdrawal policies linger. For a citizenry used to working with cash, this appears as an insurmountable hurdle. They are just at their wits’ end. The government, however, has been pitching…

Pic: Wikimedia Commons In November 2015, even before the Aadhaar Act was passed in the parliament, Swabhimaan Distributions Private Ltd, a company based in Gurgaon, launched an Aadhaar based service called TrustID. It was hailed as the first mobile app to help people verify the identity of an individual using his/her Aadhaar ID in less than 1 minute. The TrustID website says the service aims to effectively utilise the power of Aadhaar for identity verification of an individual. Basically, it offers instant Aadhaar ID authentication or Aadhaar ID background check for any contact. It can be used to check anyone’s Aadhaar…

This post is my vent on the rotten experience we LPG (Liquified Petroleum Gas) consumers, in Bangalore, had to face due to Center’s decision of deciding to transfer our LPG subsidy to our bank accounts directly. This meant that our Aadhar number had to be linked to the LPG account and to the bank. Here, I have to mention this to Mr Nilekani: whatever might have been the noble intentions behind the Aadhar card, it was not done properly. We spent a lot of our precious time to get the card done, when it was introduced. We had to make…