UIDAI Launches Five Initiatives at Aadhaar Samvaad Kolkata

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) unveiled five new initiatives at a day-long stakeholders conference called Aadhaar Samvaad, held in Kolkata. The conference coincided with the 17th Aadhaar Day and drew more than 600 policy makers, industry leaders, technocrats and other professionals.

Who attended

The chief guest was Jitin Prasada, Minister of State in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. He said Aadhaar was a very critical component of India's growth story and a cornerstone of digital governance, crediting it with improving service delivery, promoting financial inclusion on a mass scale and ensuring that government benefits reach the right people. UIDAI Chief Executive Officer Saurabh Vijay said the resident remains at the centre of every action taken by the authority. Deputy Director General Vivek C Verma delivered the welcome address.

The five initiatives

• Face Authentication for the Electronic Public Distribution System (ePDS), taken up jointly by UIDAI, the Department of Food and Public Distribution and the National Informatics Centre. It is consent-based and contactless, and helps where fingerprint authentication is difficult.
• SWIK Portal 2.0, which streamlines approvals for Aadhaar authentication under the Aadhaar Authentication for Good Governance framework, letting eligible non-government entities send proposals directly to the concerned ministry or department.
• The Sub-AUA and Sub-KUA (LITE) Framework, which lets entities with low-volume needs use the authentication infrastructure of an existing AUA or KUA instead of building their own.
• A new Token Management System for visitors to UIDAI's state and regional offices.
• A revamped UIDAI website, unveiled by the Minister of State.

The new website

The redesigned site is organised around the four reasons residents approach UIDAI: to understand Aadhaar, to use a service, to find a document or to seek help. It follows the Aadhaar brand guidelines so that the website, the myAadhaar portal and the Aadhaar App share one visual identity. Accessibility features include screen-reader compatibility, adjustable font sizes, better colour contrast and keyboard navigation. Through integration with BHASHINI the site supports 13 languages, English and Hindi among them, with a plan to raise this to 23 languages. The site also carries a new UIDAI Career Portal for online deputation applications.