Aadhaar card can be used as proof of identity, but not as a proof of citizenship or domicile.
New Delhi, March 11
The Lok Sabha on Friday passed the Aadhaar Bill
to give legal teeth to the government in ensuring its subsidies and
services reach the intended beneficiaries directly, thereby going beyond
the scheme’s current mandate of merely assigning a unique identity to
residents.
The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and
Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016, was passed by the
Lok Sabha with voice vote after a brief debate, during which Finance
Minister Arun Jaitley assured the House that details provided for the
card will not be misused in any manner.
When enacted, the Bill will empower the
government in providing targeted services to the intended beneficiaries
by assigning them unique identity numbers, called Aadhaar. It will be
given to every person who has stayed in India for 182 days in the year
preceding the date of application.
During the debate, Jaitley said there is an
“element of urgency” in passing the Bill and urged the Congress party
not to oppose or “even delay” its passage. All amendments to the Bill
moved by members of Opposition parties were either defeated or
withdrawn.
“Learning from the experience, we have improved
upon the idea,” Jaitley said and also maintained that the bill should
also not be delayed by sending it to any parliamentary panel. “We have
gone through it for seven years,” he said.
Jaitley also said the Bill tabled by the previous
government in 2010 did not conceive the purpose of such a unique
identification. This, he added, evoked public debate — and even in
courts — on the intended legislation trespassing on the rights of
citizens.
Biju Janata Dal member Tatagatha Sathpathy, who
represents Dhenkanal constituency in Odisha, said he and his party were
opposing it. But Jaitley rejected his apprehensions that Aadhaar card
can be misused for “ethnic cleansing”.
The Finance Minister also defended the move to
turn it into a money Bill, even as the Opposition Congress objected to
the move. The party’s floor leader Mallikarjun Kharge said the previous
one piloted by his party-led regime in 2010 did not term it as one.
Kharge also alleged the government intended to
call it a money Bill, motivated by an apprehension that the draft
legislation may face hurdles in the Rajya Sabha, where the ruling
coalition does not enjoy a majority.
But Jaitley said the new Bill is “unlike” the
previous one moved by the Manmohan Singh government in 2010. The Finance
Minister said its core focus was on the money the government will spend
for beneficiaries and not a mere identification document.
“This Bill deals with one primary focus and that
is: Whoever gets benefit from the Consolidated Fund of India, either
state government or the Centre and other institutions — the person is
entitled to have an Aadhaar card.” Regarding the coverage, Jaitley said
97 per cent of adult Indians now have an Aadhaar card, while 67 percent
children also have been enrolled for it. He added that 5-7 lakh people
are being added to the system each day.
Among the other features of the bill, it calls
for the government to ask a person to apply for one if he does not have
an Aadhaar number, while providing alternative means of identification
in the interim.
The card can be used as proof of identity, but not as a proof of citizenship or domicile.
Jaitley said the Aadhaar number will not be
misused since the overseeing authority can respond to an authentication
query only with a positive, negative or other appropriate response. He
said it is not permitted to share the biometric attributes. These
include finger prints and iris scans.
The details can be shared only under two circumstances: National security and court order.
The Bill also calls for an imprisonment of up to
three years and the minimum fine of Rs 10 lakh on a person for extending
unauthorised access to the centralised database — or for revealing any
information stored in it.
Jaitley also made a strong case for streamling
the country’s subsidy regime. “Subsidies should be targeted,” he said,
“Those who are undeserving should be phased out.” He said the system,
under which earlier he himself got subsidies for kerosene, needed to be
corrected. — IANS
