Modi’s intentions to digitize India are met with a ton of scepticism and a large part of society questions whether or not he is taking steps in the right direction. His recent idea of integrating the Aadhar system, “a 12-digit unique identification number issued by the Indian government to every individual resident of India,” has definitely started to prove its benefits, at least for missing children in India.

Aadhar System Identifies Missing Children

Approximately 500 missing children have been traced through the Aadhar system in a matter of months. This occurred when children in orphanages were incorporated into the Aadhar system and found to already have their identifier previously made. Even though there is a lot of criticism surrounding the newly introduced system due to issues such as privacy, this is one instance society should be able to look past in favor of the myriad of children who go missing in India and are not even identified in the system. Also, considering India has the world’s largest number of children, it is obvious that it needs to address the problem of missing children throughout the nation. This new method of keeping track of children can help the government tackle the problem efficiently. 

Previous Success in Reuniting Families

The Aadhar system has gone as far as actually reuniting a family. Due to the child’s special needs, authorities had no information about him except for his name which was written on a paper he was carrying with him when he was found. CWC chairperson Sidhartha Roy quotes,

“We were at our wit’s end to gather information about his and his family. We sent his photos to all police stations. His photo was also circulated in newspapers and on television channels. But we did not receive any information.”

As a last-ditch effort, the decision was made to see if the child had applied for an Aadhar card, and fingerprints helped match him to a card, and thus gave them the necessary information to reunite the child and his family.

Maybe the Aadhar system needs to reform its policies and add a privacy guideline, but it undoubtedly seems to be having a great impact on this very important aspect of society!