Government has decided that Aadhaar enrolment can be made by Non-Resident Indians, Persons of Indian Origin and Overseas Citizen of India which should eventually help them to authenticate their identity digitally, Parliament was informed.

“The government has decided that a longer term goal should be to expand Aadhaar enrolment activities in order to ensure that all persons on the Indian soil (Resident Indian, NRIs, OCI/PIO and visa holding visitors) shall be empowered with a unique identity / identifier that can be authenticated on a digital platform any time anywhere,” Planning Minister Rao Inderjit Singh said in written reply to Lok Sabha.

All residents including Indian national and foreigners with valid visas can be enrolled and provided Aadhaar number by the UIDAI. UIDAI is working on the policy for Aadhaar enrolment of the NRIs, PIOs and OICs after receiving the direction from the government on the issue. The minister has said in its reply that no timeframe has been formulated at this stage for achieving the goal.

Aadhaar is a valid know your customer (KYC) document for various services including banking, telecom, cooking gas subsidy, vehicle registration driving licence, government scholarships, pension and public distribution system.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) provides a unique identity numbers to residents, which can be digitally verified using the database.

UIDAI was set up in January 2009 to issue Aadhaar numbers. It has generated 89.43 crore Aadhaar numbers so far as per the information provided on UIDAI's website. This is an unique step to provide citizen with an identity.

Non-Resident Indians, Persons of Indian Origin and Overseas Citizen of India will be able to upkeep their identity as Indians. This will help the new generations to relate to India as their origin. This step is a fulfilment of the promise by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

By Premji