UIDAI aims to partner with private players for Digital India: CEO Saurabh Garg

UIDAI CEO Dr Saurabh Garg has said that they want to partner with private players for Digital India. Garg was speaking at the Global Fintech Fest 2022 on Wednesday. Dr Garg was at a fireside chat with Rajiv Aggarwal, Director and Head of Public Policy, India, META. He also spoke about the advantages of Aadhaar in removing ghost beneficiaries and mitigating leakage of funds.

Garg said, “Although the issues of privacy and consent remain paramount, we look forward to partnering with various private sector players for Digital India.” He added that so far 1.34 billion people in India have Aadhaar cards, with 100 per cent adult residents in the country having Aadhaar, unless they belong to remote pockets.

Dr Garg also said that there are around 1,000 programmes initiated by the government, including 650 of the state governments and 300 of the central government which are Aadhaar-linked.

“Deduplication, removal of ghost beneficiaries, mitigation of leakage of funds (funds get directly transferred to the bank accounts) and authentication are some of the benefits that Aadhaar offers,” he said.

The UIDAI chief said that Aadhaar is being leveraged for effective delivery of financial services. UIDAI witnesses 8 crore authentications a day, out of which 40 per cent are for Aadhaar-enabled payment systems. “Going forward, we are working with regulators like the RBI to expand our reach to the fintech and NBFC sectors,” he said.

The third edition of the Global Fintech Fest has been organised and presented by the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Reserve Bank of India, International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA), National Payments Council of India, the Payments Council of India (PCI) and the Fintech Convergence Council (FCC).

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