The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) today conducted a day long stakeholders conference with ecosystem partners to deliberate and share ideas to further enhance service delivery, improve convenience by using Aadhaar and contribute to the larger good of people.
Over 600 stakeholders including senior policy makers, industry leaders, technocrats, and professionals came together for the ‘Aadhaar Samvaad’ in Kolkata, which coincided with the 17th Aadhaar Day.
The event was graced by Shri Jitin Prasada, Minister of State, Ministry of Commerce and Industry and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology as the chief guest and marked an important milestone in Aadhaar's continuing evolution as a trusted digital identity infrastructure for India.
“Aadhaar is a great success story. Aadhaar is a very critical component for India’s growth story,” Prasada said.
“Aadhaar has been instrumental in enhancing service delivery, promoting mass scale financial inclusion, and ensuring that government benefits, reach the right people. As a cornerstone of our digital governance, Aadhaar has revolutionized the way we access government services, ensuring transparency, efficiency, and inclusivity,” Prasada added, and underlined the importance of staying in sync with the emerging technologies.
He also underlined how Aadhaar is going to be beneficial for the people of West Bengal and benefits will reach the right beneficiaries of government initiatives.
CEO UIDAI Sh Saurabh Vijay said resident continues to remain at the centre of every action of UIDAI and Aadhaar ecosystem. He underlined that the product launches on the 17th Aadhaar Day is in sync with this resident centricity philosophy.
“Throughout the day, we discussed with our stakeholders on issues like expanding usage of Aadhaar, further strengthening authentication ecosystem for good governance, the enrolment and update ecosystem, and challenges and opportunities of emerging technologies,” Vijay said.
“Today is also an occasion to recognise that Aadhaar continues to evolve with the changing needs of a rapidly transforming digital India. New technologies, new forms of service delivery and stronger emphasis on privacy, security and resident convenience are shaping its next chapter,” said Vivek C Verma, Deputy Director General, UIDAI in his welcome address.
The occasion witnessed the launch of five new initiatives aimed at enhancing resident convenience, strengthening security, enabling good governance and preparing the Aadhaar ecosystem for the next phase of digital transformation.
A key launch was Face Authentication for the Electronic Public Distribution System (ePDS), jointly undertaken by UIDAI, the Department of Food and Public Distribution (DFPD) and the National Informatics Centre (NIC). The consent-based, contactless authentication option provides beneficiaries with an additional mode of authentication, particularly in situations where fingerprint authentication may be difficult, and enables States and Union Territories to integrate Face Authentication into their ePDS ecosystems.
