The National Health Authority's (NHA) proposal to develop an Aadhaar-based self-verification platform for citizens to check whether they are eligible for the Ayushman Bharat scheme has raised quiet a few eyebrows. The apex health body set up by the entity has proposed to integrate several databases in the backend for users to conduct a self-search to check if he/she is eligible for the Ayushman Bharat scheme and register for the same. According to a tender floated by the National Health Authority, Aadhaar will be mandatory for the intended beneficiary, and for his or her family the portal aims to make use of available family IDs such as ration card, household ID and so on for enrolment. "Aadhaar number may also be used by the beneficiary to search his or her details at once across multiple databases. It may be noted that databases may be integrated at the backend using the Aadhaar number or other common unique IDs," the tender said adding that all information has to be stored on the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana program's cloud-server. So what are the databases that will work in the backend of the application? Identity details like ration card no, household ID, PMJAY ID, mobile number Ability to sieve through demographic details of the beneficiary like name, father's name, gender, State, district, village and so on For enrolling family members, the NHA plans to make use of the existing digital infrastructure of Prime Minister Arogya Mitra (PMAM), where officials are able to search for…
