Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said, the government will soon make it mandatory for linking Aadhaar with driving licences. The minister for Law, Electronics and Information Technology said, they are soon going to bring a law which will make it mandatory. Mr Prasad was delivering his presidential address at the ongoing 106th Indian Science Congress in Jalandhar yesterday.

Explaining the need for the linkage, the Minister said that at present, the guilty person who causes an accident flees the scene and gets a duplicate licence which helps him go scot-free. However, with the Aadhaar linkage, one can change his/her name but cannot change his/her biometrics, neither iris nor fingerprints.

Eulogising about the Centre’s ‘Digital India’ programme, the minister claimed that it had bridged the urban-rural divide.

Through a power presentation, Mr Prasad said, this is digital profile of India — 123 crore Aadhaar cards, 121 crore mobile phones, 44.6 crore smart phones, 56 crore internet users, there has been 51 per cent growth in e-commerce. He also said, digital payment transactions in the country have increased manifold to over 2,070 crore rupees in 2017-18.