Paper: GS – II, Subject: Governance, Topic: Broad/Overlap, Issue: Significance of Aadhaar.
Context:
The evolution and impact of India’s Aadhaar system as a digital identity infrastructure highlights Aadhaar’s global relevance and leadership in digital public infrastructure.
Key Highlights:
Initial Criticisms of Aadhaar:
- Faced strong opposition over privacy invasion, surveillance concerns, misuse of database.
- Particularly criticized by international privacy advocates, especially in Europe.
Real-World Performance: Despite fears of mass surveillance and failure, Aadhaar enabled targeted subsidy delivery, improved public service access and saw over 130 billion authentications, proving system reliability
Aadhaar’s Role in Financial Inclusion:
- Played a critical role in building Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI)
- Key milestones:
- 2011: Only 35% of adults had bank accounts
- 2023: Nearly 90% of 15+ population now have accounts
- Enabled direct benefit transfers, ATM usage, online identity verifications, especially during COVID-19
India’s Global Digital Leadership:
- Aadhaar showcased how large-scale digital ID systems can drive inclusion, support economic governance and enhance service delivery efficiency
- India emerged as a model for other developing nations.
Global Shift Towards Digital IDs: Many countries now replicating digital ID models:
- Philippines issued 76 million digital IDs
- Ethiopia aims to reach 70 million
- EU mandates digital identity wallets for all citizens by 2026 (eIDAS 2.0 Regulation)
Importance of Digital ID in Modern Governance:
- Digital IDs are crucial for efficient public service delivery, financial inclusion and modern digital economies.
- Countries without digital IDs were forced to rely on paper-based systems during the pandemic.
Economic Impact of Digital IDs: World Bank estimates digital IDs can add 3-13% to a country’s GDP.For example, Aadhaar enabled savings through leakage reduction and process streamlining.
Conclusion:
Aadhaar became a global benchmark in digital identity. India’s early adoption and vision gave it a leadership position in digital governance. Other nations are now following India’s model, validating the country’s technological foresight and governance capacity.
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