Government entities as well as major telecom operators have agreed to test Aadhaar-card based e-KYC for issuing SIM cards. This pilot will be conducted in Bhopal, Kolkata, Delhi, Lucknow and Bengaluru by telecom operators. These include the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited along with Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Reliance Communications and Idea Cellular. Under the proposal, a person would be able to avail of a new SIM card instantaneously by entering the Aadhaar number and biometrics, without needing to present a physical documentary proof. The Unique Identification Authority (UID) servers from the back-end will verify the antecedents. Based on these findings, a decision will be taken on the way ahead.
The government is of the view that e-KYC is more robust than physical documents. This is due to the fact that e-KYC can help in tracking the number of SIM cards issued to one person?s name, which is difficult in the case of physical documents. All major telecom operators are pushing for this initiative, as e-KYC can support them in reducing the costs associated with data storage and verification.
