AADHAAR AT THE AIRPORT

At the airport’s entry, a special kiosk scans a passenger’s hand to match his or her Aadhaar ID

Perhaps the biggest change that Aadhaar will bring in is for air passengers, for whom the procedures for entering the airport, checking in, clearing security and boarding gate is hugely time consuming, with redundant checks. Aadhaar can dramatically simplify the whole procedure — as Bengaluru airport is now demonstrating.

This month, it began implementing an Aadhaar-based paperless biometric verification system at various points for a flight of Jet Airways.

At entry, a special kiosk scans a passenger’s hand to match his or her ID. The boarding pass embedded with the Aadhaar number or a copy on a phone, can be shown to authenticate the passenger by showing his or her hand. At the frisking stage and boarding gate too, the passenger is identified by hand scan and provided with a paper stub with the flight details, that is produced at the aircraft door.

Hyderabad Airport, which launched such a pilot project last year, is said to be waiting for UIDAI to formally endorse the procedure. Mumbai and Delhi may soon offer the Aadhaar option.

In other ways, too, Aadhaar is making life simpler for many Indians. Government pensioners need no longer travel long distances for their annual Life certificates. They are now offered the option of going to any of a dozen or more centres in their city equipped with a fingerprint or iris scanner. Once their ID is established, the system updates their proof of life certificate for another year. At the launch last year, the system flopped because most of the local centres listed were not ready with the equipment... but things are improving.

With around 1.1 billion Indians enrolled for Aadhaar, India’s digital ID system is the largest, most ambitious of its kind in the world. Some concerns remain about the privacy and security of the data — but while these are addressed its benefits are already touching us at multiple points of service delivery.

There is no need to get your Aadhaar card laminated or obtain a plastic or SMART Aadhaar card by paying —DR AJAY BHUSHAN PANDEY, CEO, UIDAI