Update Aadhar details after 10 yrs; Govt denies making it mandatory

NEW DELHI: The Union Government has asked Aadhar Card holders to update their details if they haven't done so in at least 10 years after obtaining the card. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has issued a fresh gazette with revised guidelines relating to Aadhar Card.

The ministry however denied some media reports that, as per the revised guidelines, the Centre had made it mandatory for the Aadhar Card holders to update their details if their cards were more than 10 years old. It said that the card holders were only 'encouraged' to update their details.

"Some news reports have incorrectly reported on Thursday that updating Aadhar Card every 10 years has been made mandatory. The recently issued gazette notification also clearly mentions that residents 'may' do so on completion of every 10 years," the ministry clarified.

The gazette notification too had stated: "Aadhaar number holders may, on completion of every 10 years from the date of enrollment for Aadhar, update their supporting documents in Aadhar, at least once, by submitting Proof of Identification (PoI) and Proof of Address (PoA) documents."

According to some recent estimates, there are about 134 crore Aadhar Card holders in the country.