4 years after DOB started appearing on Aadhaar Card, it's no authentic age-proof

NOIDA: Almost four years after the UIDAI said that the Aadhaar Card can be used as an “age-proof”, the crucial KYC document is still not being accepted as a proof to establish one’s age at many offices.
While earlier, the Aadhaar Cards did not have one’s date of birth (DOB) on the card with only printing the birth year of the card holder, officials say that the card still cannot be considered an authentic proof for one’s age and the same has to be cross-checked with the Xth class mark sheet.
The Gautam Budh Nagar transport department is one such example of offices where the Aadhaar Card is still being used only as address proof but not age-proof.
However, applicants for learner’s licence and those who want licence renewal have said that since the date of birth is present on the new Aadhaar Cards being issued, it should also be used an age-proof.
“The whole idea behind giving a unique identification number was to make it available everywhere as an identity proof. I think since it’s a verified document, it should be used as a valid age-proof too,” Shweta Joshi, a resident of Sector 29, told TOI.
She said that she had to produce an identity proof as well as age-proof when she went to renew her car license at the RTO office, Sector 32.
While the Aadhaar Card is considered an address proof at most of the banks too, even they do not consider it a valid age-proof.
AK Singh, Lead Bank Manager, told TOI that although opening bank accounts doesn’t need age-proofs, they require an age proof while opening a student account. “We need an age proof for opening a student’s account. A person as young as 10 years of age can get a student’s account opened. For that, we take his school I card,” he said, adding that the Aadhaar was not considered an “authentic age-proof” because of the procedure in which it is made.
When an Aadhaar Card is made, the clerk is prone to making typo errors and the applicant might not always give the correct information, he said.
Regional inspector of transport department Vishnu Dutt Mishra told TOI that in many instances, there were discrepancies in the entries of an applicant’s date of birth in the Aadhaar Card and the Xth class mark-sheet. Hence transport department accepts only the Xth class marksheet or a passport as valid age-proof.