Now you have to link your Aadhaar with postal life insurance policy

While the petition challenging Aadhaar is still being heard by the Supreme Court, the government is continuing its drive to make it mandatory for more and more schemes. In its latest move in this drive, the government has issued a notification dated 15 February, 2018 asking all the postal life insurance (PLI) and rural postal life insurance (RPLI) policy holders to provide their Aadhaar details in their existing insurance policies. The notification also makes Aadhaar mandatory for all new insurance policies that will be issued in the future.

The notification says, "where Aadhaar number has not been assigned, the proposer/ insurant shall submit proof of application of enrolment of Aadhaar." An individual is required to submit his Aadhaar details to the Central Processing Centre (CPC)/ Post Office concerned.

Although other financial products and services like bank accounts and mutual funds are required to be linked with their Aadhaar by March 31, 2018, the notification regarding the postal insurance plan does not specify any such deadline by which existing policyholders will have to submit details of their 12-digit unique identity number.


The Aadhaar court case
The March 31 deadline is fast approaching but the Supreme Court is still hearing arguments to decide the constitutional validity of Aadhaar. However, the government has been making amendments to make Aadhaar necessary in our lives. Last year, government amended the prevention of money laundering rules (PMLA rules), making Aadhaar mandatory for every financial transaction of Rs 50,000 or above along with PAN.

Similarly, in the last budget, the government had amended the Income Tax Act making linking of PAN with Aadhaar mandatory and to provide Aadhaar details while applying for new PAN. Providing Aadhaar details while filing of income tax returns has also became a must.

Currently, an individual is required to link Aadhaar details with bank accounts, PAN, mutual fund folios, insurance policies, post office savings schemes by March 31, 2018. Apart from this, an individual is required to re-verify his mobile number using Aadhaar by this date.