Key Highlights

  • Government has issued a mandate for re-verifying Aadhaar with mobile numbers in March.
  • Telecom operators have clarified that there will be no termination of services by operators.
  • Vodafone said it has re-verified 25% of its subscribers till date.

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'Is  it compulsory to link my phone number to Aadhaar?' This is a question a lot of people out of 100 crore mobile subscribers in India are currently asking. 

Telecom companies, including Airtel and Vodafone are sending ‘reminder’ SMSes to their customers to get mobile numbers re-verified with respective Aadhaar numbers in order to continue using services. 

This move came after the Supreme Court in February this year said that all phone numbers in India should have verified users.

India’s top court did not give specific directions to verify all numbers with Aadhaar however this was decided by the government of its own accord, a report by Live Mint said on March 25.

Shortly after, a notice was issued by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in the month of March which directed all operators to re-verify existing customers, prepaid and postpaid, using their unique Aadhaar identity number and biometric details.

While this re-verification process was accelerated in the past month, the nature of the SMSes from telecom operators were of a threatening nature that read services would be terminated if not linked with Aadhaar soon.

“Sarkaari nirdeshanusar, aapka mobile number AADHAAR se jode anyatha apka number band ho jayega (As per government directive, it is mandatory to link Aadhaar with your mobile number else your number will be terminated),” a message from Vodafone Care read.

After PAN & mobile numbers, soon driving licences to be linked to Aadhaar