Ravi Shankar Prasad in New Delhi. (PTI)Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad will introduce a bill in Lok Sabha on Wednesday to amend the Aadhaar Act, Indian Telegraph Act and Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The Cabinet in mid-December approved amendments that would permit voluntary use of Aadhaar for mobile SIM card and bank account authentication, and allow children who turn 18 to opt out of the system. Prasad’s Aadhaar and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill is a move to comply with the Supreme Court-mandated requirement for a legislative backing for authentication requirements for banking and telecom services. Month-wise UIDAI numbers indicate that the apex court ruling did not affect authentication rates significantly, but did impact the number of e-KYCs. While August saw more than 24 crore e-KYCs, the numbers dipped by almost 70 per cent to 7.8 crore in December.
The UIDAI website shows that banks such as SBI and Yes Bank were in the top 10 Authentication User Agencies (AUA) with the highest number of authentication transactions, and Bank of Baroda and Punjab National Bank were in the top 10 KYC User Agencies (KUA) with the most e-KYC transactions this month.
