Aadhaar-based social welfare services reach 10.6 million people in May as Govt goes digital

Aadhaar-based face authentication transactions for delivering social welfare services in the country are gaining robust momentum with monthly transactions in May surging to an all-time high of 10.6 million. This represents a whopping 38% increase over such transactions reported in January this year, according to information provided today by the Ministry of Electronics & IT.

This is the second consecutive month in a row to register more than 10 million face authentication transactions since the scheme was launched in October 2021.

“Whether it is AePS for last mile banking, e-KYC for identity verification, Aadhaar enabled DBT for direct fund transfer or authentications, Aadhaar, the foundation of India’s digital public infrastructure and a tool of good governance, is playing a stellar role in improving Ease of Living for residents,” the official statement explained.

The AI/ML based face authentication solution developed in-house by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), is now being used by 47 entities, including state government departments, ministries in the central government and some banks.

Among many usages, it’s being used for registering beneficiaries under Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana; for authentication of beneficiaries in the PM Kisan scheme and for generating digital life certificates at home by pensioners.

It is also being used for marking staff attendance at several government departments and for opening bank accounts at a few leading banks via their business correspondents.

Among several states, the government of Andhra Pradesh is using Aadhaar based face authentication for Jagananna Vidya Deevena Scheme for fee reimbursement to eligible higher education students and under EBC Nestham scheme for welfare delivery to women from economically backward segments.

Face authentication provides features like ease of usage, faster authentication and it is preferred as an additional modality to strengthen the authentication success rate along with fingerprint and OTP authentications. It captures live images for authentication. It is safe against any video replay attacks and static photo authentication attempts by anti-social elements.

Face authentication is also working as a robust alternative and helping senior citizens and all those who have issues with the quality of their fingerprints due to several reasons including manual work or health issues.

The month of May also saw the UIDAI executing 14.86 million Aadhaar updates following request from residents

Aadhaar e-KYC service continues to play a key role in the banking and non-banking financial services sectors by providing transparent & improved customer experience and helping in ease of doing business. More than 254 million e-KYC transactions were carried out in May alone.

By the end May 2023, the cumulative number of Aadhaar e-KYC transactions has gone past 15.2 billion. Continued adoption of e-KYC is significantly reducing customer acquisition cost of entities like financial institutions, telecom service providers among others.