 "Ravi Shankar Prasad")
Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday administered the oath of office to former IT Secretary J Satyanarayana as part-time Chairman of UIDAI but said the post will not have Cabinet rank.
The part-time Chairman, who will have tenure of three years, will hold power limited to provisions defined under the Aadhaar Act 2016.
"Rank will be as governed under law. Granting Cabinet (rank) status is decided by the Cabinet. Our government does not appreciate desire to get Cabinet status," Prasad said.
In the UPA regime, the Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) was equivalent to a Cabinet minister.
Apart from Satyanarayana, the minister also administered the oath to IT company netCore's founder and Managing Director Rajesh Jain and Persistent Systems' Chairman and Managing Director Anand Deshpande — who have been appointed as part-time members of UIDAI.
On queries regarding conflict of interest in appointing Jain and Deshpande as part-time members as both of them run IT companies, the Minster said it is well defined in the Aadhaar Act.
The UIDAI has generated 105.11 crore Aadhaar numbers as on September 7 and as of 2015 census, Aadhaar covers 98 per cent of adult population and 82 per cent of the total population. About 50 lakh people are accessing their biometrics on daily basis for various purposes.
"Total number of transactions on Aadhaar platform has reached 131.11 crore and total amount involved in those transactions is Rs 37,184.81 crore. We have saved amount of about Rs 36,000 crore from Aadhaar based transactions," Prasad.
The Minister said legal framework around Aadhaar is very stringent even the owner of Aadhaar cannot reveal to anyone his biometric details. He said only in case of national security, the core biometrics iris and finger print can be revealed.
