Govt mulling unique ID for every household
New Delhi: In a major move aimed at making each and every address authentic and accessible for all, the Department of Post (DoP) is working on a robust strategy to provide a unique identification number of every household in the county.
Once launched, every house could be verified at a click with accurate location and you may not have to carry a bundle of documents such as electricity bills, telephone bills, land's registration certificates, etc to prove the authenticity of an address as the proposed unique code would have the special code of the house for postal address.
Explaining about the postal reforms, a senior official said the main purpose of the Department of Posts' 'digital address code system' is to do digital authentication of every address in the country and IIT-Hyderabad has been entrusted to prepare the digital code system.
Given that the address is a state subject, the Department of Post has no plan to make any changes in the existing addresses as the department is trying to build a layer on the address through a unique digital address code by capturing GPS coordinates, the official said, adding that it may replace the PIN code system.
"In this digital address, the preference has been given to the correct address of the house of a person. It would be connected with GPS coordinates. If there are 50 flats in a building, each flat will have a unique code. Also, if two families live on the same floor, then they will also have different codes," the official said, adding that there will be a digital code for every building located in every locality in every village or city of every state.
"Now, you have a system to identify a person on the basis of a biometric-based 12-digit Aadhaar number, but there is no mechanism to identify a particular address. Suppose, one person visits a bank to avail loan facility and submits the documents of his residential address along with the Aadhaar number," the official said, adding: "Since there is no system in place to ascertain the authenticity of the address, the bank official gets that particular address physically verified."
The official maintained: "The unique digital address code would further help in putting a check on registration of shell companies using a single address by manipulating the address. It would also help new start-ups engaged in delivery systems to get a database of authenticated addresses with complete GPS coordinates."
