On 21st December 2017, UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) decided to give the authorization to Bharti Airtel Limited to carry on with Aadhaar based e – KYC (Know Your Customer) verification of telecom subscribers till 10th January 2018. This step has been taken by the government in order to facilitate linking of Aadhaar with mobile SIMs, and the new deadline for which is 31st March, as directed by the apex court.
To know more about the extended deadline of Aadhaar with all the Services and schemes read: https://rupeenomics.com/government-extends-deadlines-of-aadhaar-linking-with-all-schemes/
However, the e – KYC license of Airtel Payments Bank is still kept suspended.
Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Department of Telecom (DoT), and audit and consultancy firm price water house Coopers India will conduct an audit of the company in order to verify its accuracy with its systems, processes, applications, documentations and any other aspect as may be identified by RBI and DoT to make it certain that the company is in agreement with its license conditions.
The authorization to give a temporary continuation to Airtel was given after Rs 138 crore of funds under the direct benefit transfer scheme were credited back to the original accounts of 55.63 lakh beneficiaries.
UIDAI had received complaints that some customers had landed their LPG i.e. cooking gas subsidy amount into their Airtel Payments Bank account, while they had linked the subsidies to their savings bank accounts. When this irregularity came in front, UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey said that
After that UIDAI has refrained Airtel from conducting any e – KYC (Know Your Customer) i.e. electronic verification or link mobile SIMs of its customers with their 12 digit biometric national ID Aadhaar or paperless e – KYC process of UIDAI.
UIDAI has also released a gazetted notification stating that banks will have to seek an explicit consent from the customers before changing the subsidy receiving scheme.
And Airtel will now use e – KYC only for mobile phone verification.
And Airtel has also been instructed to communicate to all its customers within 24 hours via SMS that their bank accounts linked with NPCI Aadhaar payment Bridge mapper for direct benefit transfer has been duly reverted from Airtel payments bank account to their previous bank accounts on the Aadhaar Payment Bridge mapper.