Aadhaar-Driving License Linking To Be Mandatory Soon: Ravi Shankar Prasad

Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said the government will soon make it mandatory for linking Aadhaar with driving license.

Delivering his presidential address at the ongoing 106th Indian Science Congress at Lovely Professional University here, the minister for Law, Electronics and Information Technology said, “We are soon going to bring a law which will make it mandatory to link Aadhaar with driving license.”

Explaining the need for the linkage, Prasad said, “At presently, what happens is that the guilty person who causes an accident flees the scene and gets a duplicate license. This helps him go scot-free. However, with the Aadhaar linkage you can change your name but you cannot change your biometrics, neither iris nor fingerprints.”

So, the moment one goes in for a duplicate license, the system will say this person already has a driving license and should not be given a new one, the IT minister added.

Eulogising about the Centre’s ‘Digital India’ programme, the minister claimed that it had bridged the urban-rural divide.

Through a power presentation, Prasad said, “This is a digital profile of India — 123 crore Aadhaar cards, 121 crore mobile phones, 44.6 crore smart phones, and 56 crore internet users. There has been a 51 per cent growth in e-commerce. India has a population of 130 crore.”

He also said that the digital payment transactions in the country have increased manifold to over Rs 2,070 crore in 2017-18.

LPU Chancellor Ashok Mittal, Punjab BJP President Shwait Malik and Phagwara MLA Som Parkash were also present on the occasion.

Nitin Gadkari reportedly said that measures like making vehicle registration and driving licenses Aadhaar-based would help the authority to check registration of stolen vehicles.

The government has already created the Aadhaar necessary for filing income tax, opening bank accounts, applying for PAN card and even for buying SIM cards. The Centre has also created linking Aadhaar necessary with PAN card, bank accounts and phone number. The government believes that linking bank account with Aadhaar can curb hiding. The government also believes that Aadhaar can create the verification method of driving licenses easier.