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NEW DELHI: Transactions using Aadhaar authentication rose to nearly 150 crore in September from just over 100 crore the previous month. This big spike in the use of the biometric ID has prompted the government to make Aadhaar authentication easier through a mobile app.

At 148.3 crore, the number of Aadhaar authentications last month was more than the country’s population, a senior government official told ET. This is a phenomenal increase from just 17 crore in December and suggests that, on an average, every Aadhaar holder used the ID at least once in September to avail of benefits or other government services, the official added.

With nearly 118.5 crore people having Aadhaar, the government has decided to enable its recently launched mobile app, mAadhaar, to do all Aadhaar authentications based on OTPs. About 31 crore transactions in September were executed using OTPs.

A major issue before the UIDAI was poor mobile network and signals causing delays in the delivery of OTP to the registered mobile number.

At times, the passwords don’t even get delivered. The new mAadhaar app, which has seen more than 1 million downloads since its launch in July, will eliminate dependence on mobile networks.

The mAadhaar app will have a time-based OTP (TOTP), so that people do not have to wait for the OTP to arrive on their mobile. A TOTP will always be available on the app on the mobile phone for 30 seconds before being refreshed to a new number.

“TOTP addresses OTPrelated shortcomings, like residents’ dependency on mobile network,” UIDAI DG Ajay Bhushan Pandey said.

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Mobile app to make Aadhaar verification easier