India 2030 – A boy madly in love proposes a girl by making a statement – “Will you link your Aadhaar to mine?”
If she flashes her aadhaar card chip embossed in her hand with the chip embossed on boy’s hand, the marriage registrar will ink the deal and issue the marriage certificate!
Does this look filmy. If wishes were horses, marriages will be made in Court and not in Heaven.
In India, wife is called as ‘Ardhaangini’ meaning ‘better half’. On a lighter side, Aadhaar is supposed to replace better half in India for males and females equally. With this brief let’s ponder on the ultimate card which every Indian citizen is striving to get today. ‘Aadhaar’. Like USA has social security number which is considered to be the ‘must have thing’. India was lacking a similar all pervasive identity card. Ration card, passport, PAN card – list is endless – but all these could be obtained through fraudulent means. Immediate neighbors trespassed in India have all these documents as compared than resident Indians. In some cases even more than one passport, PAN card which is open to misuse. This was an eye opener. All these documents lacked biometrics data. So ‘Aadhaar’ was the only answer being World’s largest biometric ID system. Too late? Better late than never.
Aadhaar was basically coined to stop leakages in social welfare schemes. But the government machinery has found its innovative use to other public and private use too. This year has seen many notifications relating to linking of Aadhaar to Income-tax returns, Bank accounts, PPF accounts, Cellular network, Insurance policies, Credit card, mutual funds, stocks, securities issued by Post Office and Social service benefits. This is just the starting since as per recent press release the Government is also proposing to make linking of aadhaar to property transactions and entry into airports (without standing in queues). Such a move would go a long way in sucking out black money from real estate and also help in crackdown on benami properties.
While no one can absolutely enforce that a transaction between two individuals is completely transparent, large-value transactions such as property and air tickets could definitely be monitored.
Mandatory Aadhaar linkage to innumerable government schemes and for identification has generated a lot of debate. Several petitions raising privacy issue against the Aadhaar linkage are being heard in the court. The Apex court is yet to give its final verdict.
Amid the privacy and protection concerns voiced by various groups, the top team of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is exploring the possibility of introducing dummy numbers that would add an extra layer of security to every Aadhaar cardholder.
For ease, the various due dates and its possible effects are listed in the *table below:
*As per press release dated 8th December, 2017, Aadhaar linking to PAN is extended the third time to 31st March, 2018.
NPowersU Expert Opinion
Cash and Black money are prevalent in property and agricultural transactions. The Government will be able to tame the Lion that is ‘Property’ by linking it to Aadhaar. In our opinion till agricultural income is not taxed by amending the constitution which gives powers to only state to tax such Income, black money and digital economy will be world apart. The Government should keep a threshold above which agricultural income should be taxed. It is well known fact that acres and acres of land are owned by the powerful and influential……should that escape tax? Hue and Cry in parliament over taxing agricultural income will be from our MPs…..Reason – Not to protect our farmers but to protect their vested interest.
But what happens if a person does not get Aadhaar even after having applied for it? Will he/ she be at the receiving end? No. Since UIDAI is finding it difficult to handle the pressure of issuing Aadhaar to citizens and the Supreme Court also yet to deliver its judgement, there are positive chances that the due date will be shifted to 31st March, 2018. (As on date aadhaar linking for PAN is extended to 31st March, 2018.)
Humour is an Ocean– Mother teaching her new born baby….say these magical three words na, ‘Aadhaar Card Compulsory.”
Related Links:
http://www.timesnownews.com/business-economy/video/soon-aadhaar-to-be-linked-with-property-land-deals/129836