New Delhi: In a significant achievement under its ongoing mission-mode drive, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has crossed the milestone of completing over one crore Mandatory Biometric Updates (MBUs) for schoolchildren studying in 83,000 schools across the country, according to a statement issued by IT Ministry on Sunday.
UIDAI had initiated this special MBU drive for schoolchildren in September 2025 after a successful technological integration with the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) application, which enabled visibility of MBUs status of children at schools. This breakthrough helped the UIDAI and schools to jointly identify children who were due for an MBU, and hold camps at schools to complete the MBU, the statement said.
A child under the age of five enrolls for Aadhaar by providing the photograph, name, date of birth, gender, address and birth certificate. The fingerprints and iris biometrics of a child are not captured for Aadhaar enrolment below the age of five because these are not mature at that age.
Therefore, providing fingerprints and iris information in Aadhaar by following the process of MBU, upon crossing the ages of 5 and 15 years, is an essential requirement for children. Lack of MBU in Aadhaar may lead to difficulties while carrying out authentication for receiving benefits under various Government schemes, registering in competitive and university examinations like NEET, JEE and CUET etc, the statement added.
In order to incentivise children to complete MBU and to make the service accessible to all, UIDAI had waived off the charges payable for MBU by children in the 7-15 age group, from October 1, 2025 for a period of one year. Further, MBU by children between 5-7 years and 15-17 continues to remain free of charge.
In addition to camps held at schools, children can also complete their MBU at any of the Aadhaar enrolment centres and Aadhaar Seva Kendras running across the country. About 1.3 crore MBU transactions have also been completed in the same period, by children visiting these centres.
Bhuvnesh Kumar, CEO, UIDAI, had written to Chief Secretaries of all States and Union Territories apprising them of this initiative by UIDAI and requested their support in conducting focused MBU camps at schools.
UIDAI Regional Offices spread across eight locations in the country have worked over five months to coordinate this massive exercise with all the stakeholders, which include the Education Departments of States and Union Territories, district-level administration, UIDAI registrars and the school authorities. The mission-mode campaign continues to be operational till such time all schools in the country are covered.
(IANS)
