--- layout: default title: "PMO's No to Smart Cards, Insists on Aadhaar" description: "A Hindu report on the Prime Minister's Office directing ministries to stop issuing smart cards for welfare schemes and rely exclusively on Aadhaar-based platforms." categories: [Media mentions] date: 2016-04-10 authors: ["Somesh Jha"] source: "The Hindu" permalink: /media/pmo-no-smart-cards-aadhaar-hindu/ created: 2026-01-18 --- **PMO's No to Smart Cards, Insists on Aadhaar** is a *The Hindu* report published on 10 April 2016 by Somesh Jha. The article reveals that the Prime Minister's Office issued directives to stop issuing new smart cards for government welfare schemes, directing ministries to rely on Aadhaar-based Direct Benefit Transfer platforms instead, despite technical experts arguing that smart cards offer superior security through cryptography. ## Contents 1. [Article Details](#article-details) 2. [Full Text](#full-text) 3. [Context and Background](#context-and-background) 4. [External Link](#external-link) ## Article Details
📰 Published in:
The Hindu
📅 Date:
10 April 2016
👤 Authors:
Somesh Jha
📍 Location:
New Delhi
📄 Type:
News Report
📰 Newspaper Link:
Read Online (Subscription required)
## Full Text

The government has decided to stop issuing new smart cards to beneficiaries of government schemes as Aadhaar is now backed by a law.

The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has issued strict instructions to the Information Technology Ministry to ensure that States and the Central government stop issuing smart cards for new programmes for beneficiaries, and to rely on the Aadhaar-based Direct Benefit Transfer platform instead.

The move will impact ministries such as Labour, Social Justice and Health, which are in the process or have already rolled out smart cards.

The government had said earlier that over 100 crore people, constituting 93 per cent of the adult population, had a unique identification (UID) number under the Aadhaar platform.

"The undersigned is directed to request the department to examine the need for state and central government departments to issue separate smart cards in the light of the near universal coverage of Aadhaar and the delivery of the most public welfare benefits through Aadhaar enabled platforms," according to a directive issued by Gulzar N, Director, PMO, to Aruna Sharma, Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology.

"The undersigned is also directed to request the department to prepare policy on the delivery of various public services using Aadhaar, Jan Dhan Yojana and existing platforms without the issuance of new smart cards."

Last month, Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thaawar Chand Gehlot had announced that all differently abled persons would soon get a unique identity card to avail welfare schemes.

State governments had also planned to use smart card technology for welfare schemes. For instance, Odisha was mulling smart cards for construction workers in the State.

The PMO sent a separate communiqué to Labour Secretary Shankar Aggarwal in the context of a proposal to issue 40 crore smart cards to informal sector workers, called the Unorganised Workers' Identification Number (U-WIN). The UWIN cards were to be used by these workers to access benefits under schemes such as Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, Aam Aadmi Bima Yojana, Atal Pension Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana and Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana.

The PMO rejected the proposal noting that Aadhaar would act as a "universal unique identifier for each citizen."

"Adding a UWIN number would not only duplicate work, but also introduce further problems in linking up with other databases which have already been linked with Aadhaar," said the missive reviewed by The Hindu.

However, experts are sceptical of the government's move.

"Smart cards are always better than biometrics. If that was not the case, the global financial infrastructure today will be working on biometrics and not on smart cards," said Sunil Abraham, executive director of The Centre for Internet and Society.

"Why are these banks working on smart cards? Smart cards work using cryptography, which is more fool-proof than biometrics. Biometrics allow for remote, covert and non-consensual identification," Mr. Abraham said.

Smart card vendors, however, said the move may not impact their market. "The demand for smart cards is massive in all the other segments such as for use in debit and credit cards or driving licenses and vehicle registration numbers," said Deven Mehta, managing director of the Mumbai-based Smart Card IT Solutions.

{% include back-to-top.html %} ## Context and Background The directive came shortly after Parliament passed the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act in March 2016, providing statutory backing to the biometric identification system that had operated without legislative authority since its launch in 2009. The government claimed near-universal coverage with over one billion enrolments, representing 93 per cent of the adult population. Multiple ministries and state governments had been developing smart card programmes for welfare delivery, including the proposed Unorganised Workers' Identification Number system intended to cover 400 million informal sector workers. Smart cards, which store data locally and use cryptographic authentication, were favoured by some policy planners as offering stronger security and privacy protections compared to centralized biometric databases. The Prime Minister's Office's intervention consolidated Aadhaar as the exclusive platform for welfare delivery, arguing that proliferating separate identification systems would create administrative duplication and interoperability challenges. However, technology experts countered that the global financial sector's continued reliance on smart cards rather than biometrics demonstrated the superior security properties of cryptographic systems, whilst warning that biometric authentication enabled possibilities for remote and non-consensual identification absent with card-based approaches. ## External Link - [Read on The Hindu](https://www.thehindu.com/business/Economy/pmos-no-to-smart-cards-insists-on-aadhaar/article8455652.ece) (Subscription required)