The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the statutory body which issues Aadhaar numbers to Indian citizens, earned Rs 27.75 crore between March and May 2019 by charging for Aadhaar authentication and eKYC services, IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad informed Lok Sabha on December 4. He had been asked for a month-wise breakdown of revenue earned by UIDAI for charging these services, but he only provided information for 3 months. UIDAI earned Rs 8.20 crore in March, Rs 10.04 crore in April and Rs 9.51 crore in May.

MeitY has no information about the private firms who wished to continue availing Aadhaar authentication services post the Supreme Court’s 2018 judgement on Aadhaar issue which disallowed use of Aadhaar by private companies, Prasad wrote.

The UIDAI authenticates Aadhaar numbers along with the demographic information or biometric information of an Aadhaar number holder for entities, including the government, public and private bodies and agencies, which collect Aadhaar details of people. The UIDAI’s Central Identities Data Repositotry (CIDR), where all this data is stored, is currently capable of handling tens of millions of authentications everyday.

Prasad also did not give a list of micro-ATM providers currently using eKYC services to withdraw Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) amount, and instead said that micro-ATM providers are appointed by banks which are regulated by the Reserve Bank of India and Department of Financial Services.

When asked about the number of eKYC transactions done in the country in the last three years, Prasad offered the following information; the maximum number of eKYC transactions were made in July 2017: