Archive · 15 Sep 2026
UIDAI Founding DG Calls Voter Roll Exercise ‘Ruinously Expensive’
India regularly checks its voter lists to make them accurate.
This checking process uses about 10 lakh public servants, many of them schoolteachers.
It also costs thousands of crores of rupees each time.
A former senior UIDAI official called the process “ruinously expensive.”
He suggested using Aadhaar and face recognition to authenticate voters.
Aadhaar can help show that a person is unique and can successfully verify their identity.
However, Aadhaar does not prove that someone is an Indian citizen.
Other electoral procedures would still decide who is allowed to vote.
The Special Intensive Revision aims to keep electoral rolls clean and accurate.
The exercise involves around 10 lakh public servants, mostly schoolteachers, and costs thousands of crores each cycle.
A UIDAI founding director general proposed an Aadhaar-EPIC face-authentication application as an alternative.
He said Aadhaar could help identify unique, living voters and detect duplicate or non-existent records.
The proposal would use Aadhaar for authentication while leaving citizenship and voting eligibility to existing electoral processes.
- Who
- A UIDAI founding director general made the proposal, involving the Election Commission of India and UIDAI.
- What
- He proposed using an Aadhaar-EPIC face-authentication application to revise electoral rolls.
- Where
- India.
- Why
- To reduce the recurring cost and administrative burden of manually revising voter rolls while helping identify duplicates and non-existent records.
- Existing exercise
- The Special Intensive Revision is intended to ensure electoral rolls are clean and accurate.
- Workforce involved
- Around 10 lakh public servants, mostly schoolteachers, participate in the exercise.
- Reported cost
- The process costs the exchequer thousands of crores in every cycle.
- Proposed technology
- An Aadhaar-EPIC face-authentication application would become the primary means of revising electoral rolls.
- Aadhaar limitation
- Aadhaar establishes identity but is not proof of citizenship.
- Proposed role of Aadhaar
- Aadhaar could provide an authentication layer while citizenship and voting eligibility continue to be determined through electoral procedures.