Despite India recording over 83 lakh deaths annually, only about 1.15 crore Aadhaar numbers have been deactivated in the 14 years since the programme began, an RTI reply from the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has revealed.
The response, obtained by India Today TV, highlights a significant gap in the Aadhaar database when it comes to reflecting mortality. Since the first Aadhaar was issued in 2010, crores of individuals have died, but less than a tenth of those deaths seem to be reflected in Aadhaar deactivations.
Why is this a matter of concern? As of June 2025, the country has 142.39 crore Aadhaar holders and for context, India's estimated population stood at 146.39 crore, according to United Nations data. The data from Civil Registration System (CRS) shows that an average of 83.5 lakh registered deaths per year between 2007 and 2019. Still, the RTI notes that UIDAI has only been able to deactivate a total of 1.15 crore Aadhaar numbers since its inception.
Why are the majority of Aadhaar cards not deactivated?
UIDAI says deactivation is only done when it receives official confirmation of death from the Registrar General of India (RGI), usually in the form of death records tagged with Aadhaar numbers. This means that the process for deactivation depends heavily on external inputs received by the Aadhar authorities in the form of certificates issued by the state government and voluntary reporting by families.
In its reply, the UIDAI admitted that it does not maintain year-wise data of deactivations, noting that "no such information is maintained year-wise". It further added that the total number of Aadhaar numbers deactivated on the basis of death data received from the RGI till December 31, 2024, stands at just 1.14 crore.
Have the guidelines been revised?
In order to improve the system, UIDAI issued revised deactivation guidelines in August 2023 which require at least a 90 per cent name match and full 100 per cent gender match with its Aadhaar database.
If these criteria match, UIDAI then checks whether there was any biometric usage or update after the recorded date of date of the holder. If it finds no data on this, the Aadhaar will be deactivated.
In cases where the Aadhaar was used even after the reported death date, further checks are carried out. If someone tries to use a deactivated Aadhaar for authentication, the system flags it and prompts the user to visit an Aadhaar centre for verification.
How This Leads To An Even Bigger Issue - 'Aadhaar Saturation'
The slow pace of Aadhaar deactivation of the deceased has now led to Aadhaar saturation exceeding 100 per cent in some districts of India. During the electoral revision in Bihar, the saturation rate was reported as high as 126 per cent in Kishanganj and above 120 per cent in districts like Katihar, Araria and Purnia.
Such bloated data, UIDAI notes, is partly because Aadhaar numbers of the deceased are not removed in a timely manner which further distorts the population metrics and affects planning and policy efforts that rely on this data.
How is UIDAI going to fix this problem?
Accepting that this is a serious problem, UIDAI has been working with the RGI to streamline data sharing. Since 2022, around 1.55 crore death records from 24 states and union territories have been shared with authorities, out of which 1,17 crore Aadhaar numbers have been deactivated so far after verification.
Currently, 67 lakh records are under the process.
Last month, UIDAI also introduced a new feature that now allows families to report deaths voluntarily. More tech-based solutions are in the pipeline, including real-time integration of CRS and non-CRS databases via APIs, to automate the update of death information and reduce the lag in deactivation.
However, until these systems are fully in place and uniformly adopted, India's Aadhaar database would continue to carry the burden of the deceased on active Aadhaar numbers, bloating the overall numbers even long after the lives they were linked to have ended.
