One nation, one card? Amit Shah pitches multi-purpose ID for citizens

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday proposed the idea of a multipurpose identity card for citizens with all utilities like passport, Aadhaar, driving licence and bank accounts. Which card can serve the purpose? Voter cards have a 99.36 per cent penetration in India but only 897 million citizens were eligible to vote in General Election 2019. Indians have 574 million bank accounts, but it could include multiple accounts held by individuals. Aadhaar could be a natural choice for its reach and dynamism: 91 per cent of Indians (12.44 billion), out of total population of 13.69 billion (on Sep 23, 2019) now have an Aadhaar card. It has already been used to authenticate almost 34 billion transactions.