No plans to make Aadhaar linking with Driving Licence mandatory as yet

With speculations about Aadhaar linking with some service or the other making news almost on a daily basis, what has become clear is that linking of Aadhaar with the Driving Licence is not likely to be made mandatory anytime soon.

Aadhaar, however, can be used as an identity document while applying for licences, but linking it to new licences would be "voluntary", said a Hindustan Times report quoting the Law Ministry.

Although road transport minister Nitin Gadkari and his law ministry counterpart Ravi Shankar Prasad are said to be keen to link the two, an HT report states that the law ministry has told the road transport ministry that the 12-digit identity number cannot be made mandatory for issuing a driving licence.

Gadkari, has in the past, shown a great deal of enthusiasm towards linking the DL and Aadhaar as a third of driving licences in India are bogus. Gadkari feels that Aadhaar linking would help that law enforcement agencies to curb the menace of fake licences. Aadhaar linking with various services has become a contentious issue in the country.

Some are apprehensive about the safety of Aadhaar data after reports emerged that private details of citizens were leaked on government websites. The latest to make news over Aadhaar related issues was the Facebook.

In a bid to check creation of fake accounts, Facebook is testing a new feature which encourages those opening new accounts to submit their names as in their Aadhaar cards. Facebook is currently testing this new feature on the limited number of users and not all users may be able to see this.