5 lakh still use Aadhaar for attendance in state

Officials wait for final guidelines to implement UIDAI

The Supreme Court has barred Aadhaar-based authentication but about five lakh people are continuing to mark Aadhaarbased attendance in the state.

The Telangana State Technological Services (TSTS) has implemented the Aadhaar-based attendance system (ABAS) in the offices of the state government and the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, welfare hostels, schools and colleges among others.

The ABAS has three critical components — device, connectivity and authentication solution — to monitor attendance on a real-time basis.

The ABAS was considered as a key step towards digital governance.

A senior government official said that a status quo was being maintained. “The authentications are happening at the UIDAI level as they are in control of the database. So as long as UIDAI is allowing it, ABAS will continue. The Supreme Court has not definitively stopped government authentication but privately they are clearly barred.”

The School Education Project is fully operational wherein in 9,000 schools and 12,000 devices have been deployed in 12 districts. As many as 25,000 teachers are doing authentications every day, while for students it is yet to pick up but officials have noted that schools have the potential to add another 5 lakhs.

Officials are waiting for detailed guidelines from the UIDAI which owns all Aadhaar datal even governments are taking services from them. Officials also noted that UIDAI is deliberating to come out with guidelines.

A senior official said, “We have to wait till they come out with guidelines. The judgement is differentiating between the private and government services. Section 57 is a crucial section for authentication. In section 57, the Supreme Court has held ‘others’ part of it as invalid.”

UIDAI is reportedly studying the judgement to understand and issue the guidelines.

The senior official added, “Based on the gist of the order, government authentication may be acceptable for professionals but in case of schools and children, it needs to be deliberated. The ABAS system is from school to PG; we should see which ones are not to be done and which ones have to be done. We are waiting for further clarification from UIDAI.”