The Public Accounts Committee of Parliament (PAC) held a meeting on Thursday morning to review the functioning of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) based on the 2021 CAG report.
The committee obtained information from the audit team and obtained oral evidence from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and UIDAI officials. PAC President and Congress MP KC Venugopal said that Aadhaar issues directly affect the common people and need to pay serious attention to them, especially on issues related to biometric verification. He assured that the committee would investigate the matter in detail.
Venugopal told ANI, “This is the issue of the common man. There are many issues like biometric verification. Many questions have been raised. We will definitely look at the details.”
On Tuesday, UIDAI reiterated the importance of completing mandatory biometric updates (MBU) for children who have achieved seven years of age, but have not yet updated their biometric updates in Aadhaar.
According to the statement, it is an existing requirement under the base, and parents or parents can update their child’s details at any Aadhaar Services Center or designated Aadhaar center.
A child under five years of age can enroll for Aadhaar by giving his picture, name, date of birth, gender, address and other documents as proof. For the Aadhaar enrollment of a child under five years of age, biometrics of his fingerprints and eyes pupils are not taken as they do not mature till that age.
According to the current rules, it is necessary to get fingers scars, scans of eyes pupils and a picture essentially updating when reaching the age of five years. This is called the first compulsory biometric update (MBU). If the child gets MBU done between the ages of five and seven years, then it is free. However, after the age of seven, only a fixed fee of Rs 100 will have to be paid.
MBU’s timely completion is a significant need to maintain the accuracy and reliability of children’s biometric data. The release states that if the MBU is not completed until the age of the person is 7 years, then according to the current rules, his Aadhaar number can be defused.
The update biometric information base makes life easier and ensures uninterrupted use of Aadhaar in services such as admission in school, registration for entrance examinations, and wherever applied, taking advantage of scholarship and DBT (direct benefit transfer) schemes. Parents/parents are advised to update the biometrics of their children/dependents in the base on a priority basis.
UIDAI has started sending SMS messages to the mobile numbers registered in the basis of such children to complete the MBU process.
