Aadhar

Aadhar card mandatory to receive LPG subsidy
March 22, 2016
Jamshedpur, March 21: If you want to continue getting subsidy on your LPG cylinder then you must get your connection linked to Aadhar card.

If a person doesn’t have an Aadhar card he/she won’t get subsidy in gas cylinder. To avail the subsidy, a consumer will first have to link his/ her Aadhar card number to their bank account and subsequently submit a xerox of the same to the respective gas agency, who will link it with their log in.

Earlier, only the bank account number provided to the gas agency was enough to avail subsidy, but now the government has changed the criterion which has made the consumers suffer.

The consumers are now doing rounds of the banks after the scheme of directly linking from the gas agency was withdrawn. The subsidy can be closed down from next month; this was decided during a meeting of the gas agency owners recently.

They want to implement the rule strictly. Earlier, the gas agencies were providing direct linking facility to the consumers but with the new rule in place the facility has been stopped.

An owner of a gas agency informed that the consumers who have not submitted the Aadhar might not get subsidy in gas cylinders from next month onwards. The consumers who have directly linked by giving bank account number to the gas agency should submit Aadhar card xerox to the bank and gas agency.

Significantly, consumers are currently getting 12 subsidized cylinders in a year and the cycle starts from April 1 to March 31.

“Departmental level meeting of gas agency owners was held and it was decided that we should motivate the consumers to make Aadhar mandatory and also appeal the rich to quit gas subsidy. If the rich people leave subsidy then several poor people can light a flame in their kitchen,” said Tarachand Agarwal, spokesperson, Rasoi Gas Association.

It may be noted that there are around 2.75 lakh LPG cooking gas consumers in Jamshedpur of which more than 18,000 have left the subsidy. Agency owners said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had appealed the rich to give up the subsidy to help the poor.

Those who have left the subsidy in Jamshedpur include senior administrative officials, gas agency owners, senior government officers and senior level officers of private companies.

According to sources at the gas agency, more than 40,000 consumers have not deposited their Aadhar cards yet.

Last updated:Tuesday, March 22, 2016
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The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016, aimed at at better targeting of subsidies through the Aadhar unique identity number. The passage of the Bill was preceded by heated debate in the Rajya Sabha involving Opposition members, especially Congress member Jairam Ramesh.

Reuters

Here are the salient features of the bill (as explained by PRS Legislative) and the concerns regarding its implementation:

What is the bill all about?

The Bill intends to provide for targeted delivery of subsidies and services to individuals residing in India by assigning them unique identity numbers, called Aadhaar numbers. Every resident shall be entitled to obtain an Aadhaar number. A resident is a person who has resided in India for 182 days, in the one year preceding the date of application for enrolment for Aadhaar.

What are the salient features of the Bill?

For anyone to get an Aadhaar number the details that needs to be submitted include (i) biometric (photograph, finger print, iris scan) and (ii) demographic (name, date of birth, address) information.

The Aadhaar number will be used to verify the identity of a person receiving a subsidy or a service. If a person does not have an Aadhaar number, the government will ask them to apply for it. Otherwise, the person will be given an alternative means of identification. 

Any public or private entity can accept the Aadhaar number as a proof of identity of the Aadhaar number holder, for any purpose. However, the number is not a proof of citizenship or domicile.

What are the safeguards in place?

It is the UID authority that will authenticate the Aadhaar number of an individual, if an entity makes such a request. 

A requesting entity (an agency or person that wants to authenticate information of a person) has to obtain the consent of an individual before collecting his information. 

The agency can use the disclosed information only for purposes for which the individual has given consent.

The UID authority is not permitted to share an individual’s biometric information such as finger print, iris scan and other biological attributes. 

Further, these details will be used only for Aadhaar enrolment and authentication, and for no other purpose.

The authority shall record the entity requesting verification of a person’s identity, the time of request and the response received by the entity. The purpose for which an individual's identity needs to be verified will not be maintained.

What are the exceptions for information sharing?

As per Section 33 of the Bill there are two cases when information may be revealed:

a) In the interest of national security, a joint secretary in the central government may issue a direction for revealing, (i) Aadhaar number, (ii) biometric information (iris scan, finger print and other biological attributes specified by regulations), (iii) demographic information, and (iv) photograph. 

Such a decision will be reviewed by an oversight committee (comprising Cabinet Secretary, Secretaries of Legal Affairs and Electronics and Information Technology) and will be valid for six months.

b) On the order of a court, (i) an individual’s Aadhaar number, (ii) photograph, and (iii) demographic information, may be revealed.

What are the offences and punishments for violation?

A person may be punished with imprisonment up to three years and minimum fine of Rs 10 lakh for unauthorised access to the centralised data-base, including revealing any information stored in it. 

If a requesting entity and an enrolling agency fail to comply with rules, they shall be punished with imprisonment up to one year or a fine up to Rs 10,000 or Rs 1 lakh (in case of a company), or with both.

Why did the Opposition object to the Bill?

For one, the Opposition parties raised objections to the Bill being introduced as a money Bill. 

A money Bill pertains to taxes or spending or borrowing of the government and requires no approval from the Rajya Sabha. 

The Upper House can only make recommendations, which the Lok Sabha can accept or reject. Once the Lok Sabha passes a money bill with or without amendments recommended by the Rajya Sabha, it is deemed to have been passed by both the Houses.

The Opposition contents that the Aadhaar Bill has been introduced as a money Bill only to circumvent the ruling NDA's minority status in the Rajya Sabha.

Secondly, the case on whether the implementation of the Aadhaar number indeed encroaches the privacy of a person is still pending in the Supreme Court. So the Opposition parties were of the opinion that Parliament cannot legislate since the matter is before Supreme Court.

Thirdly, there are concerns that the term 'national security' as mentioned in Section 33 (that deals with exceptions for not disclosing identity) can be mis-used. The concern is not without basis given the emotions being whipped up around nationalism and patriotism. Ramesh wanted the words 'national security' to be replaced by "public emergency and public safety" for sharing the bio-metric details.

A group of social activists had also raised this concern after the bill was passed in the Lok Sabha earlier. They said the legislation may be misused for "mass surveillance" as it does not address concerns over privacy. "It will used for mass surveillance. The law will be an infringement on the rights of privacy of people," activist Kavita Srivastava was quoted saying in a PTI report.

Fourthly, does the bill make Aadhaar number mandatory for all the citizens. The finance minister clarified that it is not mandatory. If a person does not have Aadhaar number, he or she will be given an alternative identification.

In last-ditch attempts, Opposition members including those from Trinamool, CPI(M) and BJD appealed to the government to respect the "wisdom" of the house of elders and accept their amendments in a democratic spirit and not to reject them on "ego".

What are the government's justifications?

According to finance minister Jaitley, who moved the Bill, it is a money Bill because it deals subsidies and money that is flows out of the Consolidated Fund of India. What also came to the government's rescue is speaker PJ Kurien's contention that that it was a money Bill.

On the Opposition argument that Parliament should not legislate as the case is pending in the Supreme Court, Jaitley said Parliament cannot abdicate its duty under the Constitution which clearly separates powers among various institutions.

On the use of the term 'national security', Jaitley said security of state over the years have come to be defined as a well defined concept. He also said the phrase has been borrowed from the 2010 law, which was brought in by the UPA. "(The term national security) has evolved and is defined. It is something to do with integrity of the India, sovereignty of India. (But) there is no concept of public emergency. You are permitting by your amendment, a much larger encroachment of privacy that the law permits.

He also said while national security is limited, public safety and public emergency are not constitutional phrase. "They are undefined and unustified... Public safety is a vaguer phrase," he said, adding, "national security over the years is a narrower phrase. It interest involves interest of the security of the state, integrity of India".

He also said that the "encroachment" of personal liberty or privacy has been narrowed down and "we have taken care of larger no of privacy concern...".

Why is the Bill important?

As explained earlier, it is central to the ambitious financial inclusion programme of the Modi government. For the government, passing such a law had become important after the Supreme Court issued an interim order in October 2015 saying the Aadhaar number cannot be made mandatory for availing benefits or subsidies or services of the government. The Aadhaar card scheme is purely voluntary and it cannot be made mandatory till the matter is finally decided by it, the court had said.

The Bill will enable the government to set up a statutory authority for the Aadhaar card scheme. This will permit banks to use the Aadhaar number as identification for customers, which will help them weed out fake Jan Dhan accounts.

NDA’s Aadhaar Bill stronger than UPA’s on privacy, says Nandan Nilekani
The Aadhaar Bill, 2016 clearly specifies that the biometric information captured will be used only for Aadhaar enrolment and authentication.Written by P Vaidyanathan Iyer | New Delhi | Updated: March 17, 2016 12:13 pmNandan Nilekani

NANDAN NILEKANI, the first Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), and considered one of the chief architects of Aadhaar, says the NDA government’s Aadhaar Bill has enough safeguards and this is probably the most stringent law on privacy till date in India.

“In fact, this (the Bill on privacy) is stronger than the original Bill. The Bill has very robust privacy protection beyond what any other legislation has ever provided in India. It is as good as it gets,” Nilekani told The Indian Express.


The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016 clearly specifies that the biometric information captured will be used only for Aadhaar enrolment and authentication. 

It will not be used for any other purpose nor shared with anyone. Such information will not be published or displayed publicly. 

Further, the authority cannot reveal the biometric information to any institution requesting authentication for a specific purpose.

The only exception to privacy protection that the Aadhaar Bill, 2016 provides is for reasons of national security. 

An individual’s information may be revealed in the interest of national security if a joint secretary in the Central government issues such a direction. Here, too, the decision will be valid for six months, and has to be reviewed by an Oversight Committee comprising the Cabinet Secretary and the secretaries of Legal Affairs and Information Technology.


While this has sparked a debate on privacy being compromised in the name of the vaguely defined national security, the UPA government’s National Identification Authority of India Bill of 2010 too provided for such an exception in the interest of national security. 

The only difference is that the joint secretary had to take the approval of the Minister-in-charge. In the Aadhaar Bill, 2016, it is the highest level bureaucrat (Cabinet Secretary-led oversight committee) and not a political committee.

According to Nilekani, “World over every database is open for national security. In any country, national security concerns provides for authorities to access any system. The question is whether anyone will misuse it. The Aadhaar Bill has enough safeguards, and its privacy constraints are stronger than the previous Bill. It is a big leap forward in the quality of legislation India has seen.”

Arghya Sengupta, Research Director, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, who assisted the NDA government in drafting the Aadhaar Bill, said personal privacy and personal data protection are two distinct issues. “My personal privacy is different from data protection. Of course, we need a separate privacy law. That is a big gap in the system. But as far as privacy of personal data and its protection is concerned, the Aadhaar Bill is a beta version of the privacy law will look like,” he said.

Explaining the rationale behind a bureaucrat-led oversight committee instead of a political committee (the earlier Bill provided for clearance by a minister-in-charge) to review a direction by a joint secretary, Sengupta said, “National security is not a prerogative of Parliament, but of the government.” While the possibility of misuse will always exist, the ultimate guard is the courts, he added.

Aadhaar bill: With no respect for the law
There is reason to wonder if this law is intended to be taken seriously, except in getting everyone on the data base, making it a scheme to number the population, and giving extraordinary powers to the UIDAI.Written by Usha Ramanathan | Updated: March 17, 2016 2:17 pm
To give Mr Jaitley his due, he has been honest this time round and dropped even the pretense of consent.

The disrespect for the law has been an abiding aspect of the UID project, never mind the government (facts have mattered as little, but that is for another time).

In the beginning there was no law; only an executive notification which meant that people did not have any idea of what the scope and limits of the project were. 

Then, when the pressure built up for a law to be enacted, a Bill was introduced in Rajya Sabha in December 2010, over two months after collection of information and enrollment had begun. 

In December 2011, a Standing Committee of Parliament, having considered the Bill and the project, rejected not just the Bill but also found that the project should go back to the drawing board.


In the beginning, the project was promoted as voluntary. 

Then, by the end of 2012, the people of this country were warned that the UID was becoming compulsory in a variety of fields, and we had better get enrolled or risk getting left out. 

When people went to court challenging the project as being a tool for surveillance, as violative of privacy, as based on imperfect and untested technology, and the court directed that the UID number should not be made mandatory, that order was unapologetically flouted. 

It was the bullying and threats of exclusion from subsidies and services that drove people to enroll, and then that was projected as voluntary enrollment.

Now, we are told that the number on the data base is close to a 100 crore, and that that establishes it as a project loved and happily adopted by the people. 

The troughs and swells of enrollment, however, would tell another tale. Whenever the court spoke to say that no one can be denied any service because they do not have a UID number, there would be a dramatic slowing down of enrollment. When the government would override this injunction and refuse any service to those who could not show they had enrolled, the enrollments would go up. 

To suggest that this data base was built with the ‘consent’ of the people enrolling would be farther from the truth than imagination can reach. 

To give Mr Jaitley his due, he has been honest this time round and dropped even the pretense of consent. It doesn’t matter what you think of enrollment; just do it, or else.

From its early stages, privacy was recognized as a serious concern in the context of this project, but it was sidestepped on the pretext either that privacy was a thing of the past anyway, what with Google and Facebook and social media; or that privacy is a larger issue than just the UID project and so should be dealt with in some other forum. 

Till the day the Attorney General told the court, on behalf of the project, that privacy is not even a fundamental right in the Indian Constitution. 

That the government was arguing in another case in a courtroom down the corridor that the court should not shoot down the criminal offence of defamation so that the government could safeguard the privacy interests of the people, is a demonstration of deep cynicism and of the importance of tactical ploys over constitutional principles.

Then, when the August 11, 2015 order of the Supreme Court became an obstruction to mandating enrollment, and demand the number as a precondition to getting any service or subsidy, that prompted the move to get past the court order by the passage of the law. And so, the short-circuiting of the Constitution and shortchanging Parliament.

The words Consolidated Fund of India feature in the Bill; but Article 110 is unfortunately clear that a money bill can by definition only contain provisions that pertain to the specific categories of taxation and appropriation from the Consolidated Fund or the Contingency Fund of India; and even incidental taxes, fines and penalties do not a money bill make. The ‘only’ speaks volumes. The UID Bill no way fits the definition of a money bill.

In fact, what the Bill does not do is provide any subsidy, benefit or service. All it does is to say that, if anything is going to be provided by the state, then the UID number may be made a ‘condition’ to getting anything done.

The definitions of each of these terms – subsidies, benefits, services – is sprawling and all over the place. So, ‘benefit’ means any advantage, gift, reward, relief, or payment, in cash or kind …”, and it can be made conditional on UID enrolment. 

And any private company or person too can ask for the UID number before handing over such ‘benefits’. How much of this idea of benefits, or services, including that with which a private company is concerned, has to do with the Consolidated Fund? Does it matter?

There is reason to wonder if this law is intended to be taken seriously, except in getting everyone on the data base, making it a scheme to number the population, and giving extraordinary powers to the UIDAI. Why? 

Take a look at the definition of ‘resident’. It says that only residents will be enrolled and given numbers; and to qualify as a resident a person must have been resident in India for at least 182 days in the preceding 12 months. 

One can provide evidence of not being in the country for a certain period by producing a travel document, but what is proof that one has been in India for 182 days? 

Also, in this grand data base of a 100 crore people, how many people have been enrolled after their residence in India was verified? Will anyone really care what the law says? After all, structures of authority and control are all within the UIDAI and the central government; the people are merely subjects of the state who may be bullied at will.

This continuity between governments in their disregard for the law is stunning.