Unique IDs: From PAN to Aadhaar, the universe of unique IDs is expanding in India

What is the News?

Central Government and State Governments have been launching various Unique IDs to bring transparency and curb leakages in the system.

What are the Unique IDs launched by the Central Government?

Aadhaar: It is a 12-digit random number issued by the UIDAI (“Authority”) to the residents of India after satisfying the verification process laid down by the Authority. Around  312 schemes were linked to Aadhaar, and ten ministries accounted for 70% of linked schemes.

PAN Card: PAN is an abbreviation of Permanent Account Number. It is an alphanumeric, 10-digit unique number issued to every taxpayer by the Income Tax Department of India. 

There are other unique IDs as well such as voter ID for election, unique health ID for vaccination and health-related data, a unique ID for persons with disabilities, a unique ID for property across 12 states, a corporate ID for each company and one unique ID for migrant workers.

Moreover, the government in 2019 ann­oun­ced that it would start distributing 12-digit unique IDs to farmers, which will encompass all the agriculture-related schemes. 

What are the Unique IDs launched by the State Governments?

Haryana government has launched the Parivar Pehchan Patra scheme. The scheme will accord a unique eight-digit ID to each family and link all state government schemes on subsidy, pension and insurance.

Bhamashah Yojana is a scheme introduced by the Government of Rajasthan to transfer financial and non-financial benefits of governmental schemes directly to women recipients in a transparent way.

Madhya Pradesh provides Samagra IDs and passwords for its residents to register themselves and avail themselves the government benefits.

Note: Instead of each state launching its own unique IDs, they can easily assign all Aadhaar IDs to one family unit and then distribute benefits based on that information.

Source: This post is based on the article ‘From PAN to Aadhaar, the universe of unique IDs is expanding in India’ published in Business Standard on 19th January 2022.