The Unique Identification Authority of India has deactivated more than 1.4 crore Aadhaar numbers linked to dead persons as part of a cleanup drive, The Times of India reported on Monday.

The authority is a statutory body set up under the 2016 Aadhaar Act to issue 12-digit unique identity numbers to residents of India.

UIDAI chief Bhuvanesh Kumar told the newspaper that removing Aadhaar numbers of persons who have died is crucial to maintaining the integrity of welfare schemes and safeguarding public funds from misuse.

An unidentified official told the newspaper that the statutory body aims to deactivate two crore Aadhaar numbers by December.

One of the main hurdles is that Aadhaar is not mandatory for the registration of a person’s death, creating substantial gaps in the data, the unidentified official told the newspaper.

“Many death records either don’t include Aadhaar numbers or contain incorrect or poorly formatted information,” he added.

Therefore, the statutory body was sourcing data on deaths from several channels, including the Registrar General of India’s Civil Registration System, in collaboration with states and Union Territories.

For states not yet on the system such as Karnataka, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Punjab, Puducherry, Goa, Rajasthan, Telangana, Odisha and West Bengal, the data was being collected independently.

The UIDAI has also partnered with banks, insurance firms, pension funds and Public Distribution System authorities to regularly update Aadhaar records, the newspaper reported.

The Aadhaar number is tied to an individual’s fingerprints, face and eye scan. The unique identification project was introduced as a voluntary way of improving welfare service delivery and giving those without identification an ID they could use.

In practice, however, the government expanded it by making it mandatory for a number of services, forcing residents to sign up for Aadhaar to get access to a number of welfare measures.

Aadhaar is linked to more than 3,300 government schemes, including pensions, subsidies and financial aid, The Times of India reported.

Scroll’s Identity Project focuses on the several issues connected to Aadhaar. Read the series here.

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