Envisioning India-The Potential of Aadhar, Lecture delivered in CMS National Lecture Series on Analysing and Envisioning India, February, New Delhi: Nehru Memorial and Museum Library, Nandan Nilekani

There are a large number of residents in India who don’t have an acknowledged existence. In other words they don’t have a birth certificate, school certificate, they don’t have a home and therefore the system does not recognize their existence. And as such they do not have any identity proof. This runs into a very large number of people. The whole concept of Aadhar is based on the inclusion point of view and not exclusion. With biometric verification, generating one number per person is only possible, so the scope for duplication does not exist.