Aadhaar card - " Is this what We need???"

Aadhaar Card Logo

When central government introduced the Aadhaar number I'm very excited that I'm going to get a number for myself which I have seen only in sci-fi movies. But even after getting Aadhaar card I find no practical use for my Aadhaar number other than showing it as an identity proof while travelling and buying free sim cards. I didn't have a bank account and even if I have a bank account it didn't make much sense by linking my Aadhaar number to my bank account since it ends as the formality itself. If linking my Aadhaar number to my account is made mandatory that what is the use of PAN number which I applied and got from IT department. 

You may wonder that I'm criticizing everything regarding Aadhaar number. But what I expected about Aadhaar number is that a debit card styled card made of carbon fibre (it sounds geeky) with all my details encoded in a small microchip or a magnetic strip with following functionalities

1. I go to bank and open a bank account by just giving the Aadhaar number and no more. Of course a surety by another person and formal signature in lot of boring papers is necessary.

2. I apply for a job by just giving the Aadhaar number with few signatures here and there.

3. I drive a car and a traffic police stops me and asks me for my license and I give my Aadhaar card the traffic police checks it via a specialised bar code reader and lets me drive. That's it!!! Even without asking money.

4. I thought that Aadhaar card will make me forget my name, address, reduces my need to carry a PAN card, Driving license, Voters ID, School ID, College ID, Office ID and even more since all that information are decoded in the Aadhaar card itself.

But What I really get is that a cheap paper card from UIDAI office after 6 month of taking my photographs and getting all my particulars. I wonder did it really took that much time to print such a cheap card. If I keep it in my wallet for more than a day it'll worn out into nothing. With an extra job of keeping the highly fragile Aadhaar card in my wallet and filling my 12 digit Aadhaar number in all the places of official use, it is nowhere near my expectations. I ask the UIDAI officials to have an insight of what they were doing. Even without developing the platform for actual practice it is not fair to mandate it for official work, since it adds no value proportion to the end user in any means and it even ends up as a burden to the end user.