Govt clears Aadhaar Bill

Tribune News Service
New Delhi, June 12

The government today approved a Bill to allow voluntary use of Aadhaar as identity proof for opening bank accounts and procuring mobile phone connections.

The government said with the approval from the Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, “The Aadhaar Amendment Bill-2019” will be introduced in the forthcoming session of Parliament.

The Bill — which replaces the Aadhaar ordinance—seeks to give effect to the changes in the Aadhaar Act such as giving a child an option to exit from the biometric ID programme on attaining 18 years of age.

“The decision would enable UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) to have a more robust mechanism to serve the public interest and restrain the misuse of Aadhaar... Subsequent to this amendment, no individual shall be compelled to provide proof of possession of Aadhaar number or undergo authentication for the purpose of establishing his identity unless it is so provided by a law made by Parliament,” the statement read. The amendment provides for stiff penalties for violation of norms set for the use of Aadhaar.

Teachers’ recruitment

The Union Cabinet also approved The Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Bill, 2019, to address key demands of Dalit and Backward Class activists to accept a university or a college as a unit for recruiting teaching staff.

This will help in ensuring adequate representation to the reserved category aspirants in filling 7,000 existing teachers’ vacancies.

“We have often said that the existing reservation system in educational institutions where a department is the unit for implementation of the quota benefits has been disadvantageous to candidates from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribe and Other Backward Castes,” Information & Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said.

The Bill would ensure that a university or a college would be considered as one unit based on 200 point roster. “The Bill would also ensure the rollout of 10 per cent reservation for the economically weaker sections from the general categories of the candidates,” Javadekar said.