Enforcement Officer / Accounts Officer (EO/AO) 2017 recruitment test. Transcribed from the Commission's own booklet (series A, GRS-A-TNS); answer as per the official UPSC final answer key. This question is in Part B. Answer last reviewed 24 August 2026.

Which one of the following is not a feature of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016?

(a)Only citizens of India are entitled for enrolment under this Act.
(b)Both demographic and biometric information is to be submitted for enrolment.
(c)The Unique Identification Authority of India is responsible for enrolment and authentication under this Act.
(d)It is the responsibility of the Unique Identification Authority to ensure the security of identity of individuals.

Answer

Why

Correct — A, (a) Only citizens of India are entitled for enrolment under this Act. The stem asks for the statement that is not a feature of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, with not printed in bold italic, and this one fails on the very first operative section of the statute. Section 3(1) provides that every resident shall be entitled to obtain an Aadhaar number by submitting his demographic information and biometric information and undergoing the process of enrolment. The word is resident, not citizen, and the Act defines it: a resident is an individual who has resided in India for a period totalling one hundred and eighty-two days or more in the twelve months immediately preceding the date of application for enrolment. Residence, tested by days of presence, is the qualification; nationality is irrelevant to it. The Act then says so from the other direction as well. Section 9 provides that an Aadhaar number, or the authentication of one, shall not by itself confer any right of, or be proof of, citizenship or domicile. That is a deliberate design choice and it follows from what the number is for: Aadhaar was built as an identity infrastructure for the delivery of subsidies and services out of the Consolidated Fund of India, so it has to reach everyone the state is delivering to, and it was given no role in establishing who belongs to the country. A card that made citizenship a condition of enrolment would be a different instrument altogether.

Why the others are wrong

(b)Both demographic and biometric information is to be submitted for enrolment. — This is a feature, and it comes from the same sentence that disposes of the keyed option. Section 3(1) requires the individual to submit both demographic information and biometric information in order to obtain an Aadhaar number. The Act defines each. Demographic information covers name, date of birth, address and similar particulars, and it expressly excludes race, religion, caste, tribe, ethnicity, language, records of entitlement, income and medical history. Biometric information covers a photograph, finger prints, an iris scan and such other biological attributes as may be specified by regulations. The two together are what makes the number unique to a person rather than to a document.
(c)The Unique Identification Authority of India is responsible for enrolment and authentication under this Act. — Also a feature. The Act establishes the Unique Identification Authority of India as a statutory body, and its powers and functions are set out in the sections that follow, including specifying by regulations the demographic and biometric information required for enrolment, collecting that information, issuing Aadhaar numbers, maintaining the Central Identities Data Repository and performing authentication. Before this Act the Authority had existed only by executive order, and giving it a statutory footing was one of the principal purposes of the legislation.
(d)It is the responsibility of the Unique Identification Authority to ensure the security of identity of individuals. — A feature as well. The Act places the security of identity information squarely on the Authority: it must ensure the security of identity information and of authentication records, and take measures including security safeguards to protect the information in its possession or control against access, use or disclosure that the Act does not permit. Alongside that sit the restrictions on sharing — core biometric information may not be shared with anyone or used for any purpose other than the generation of Aadhaar numbers and authentication — and the offences and penalties chapter that backs the obligation with criminal sanctions.

Concept

The Aadhaar Act, 2016 gave statutory form to a programme that had been running for years on executive authority, and its architecture is worth holding in outline. Enrolment is voluntary in form and open to every resident, defined by 182 days of presence in the preceding year. The Unique Identification Authority of India is constituted as a statutory body to run the system: it specifies what information is collected, collects it through enrolling agencies, issues the twelve-digit number, keeps the Central Identities Data Repository and performs authentication when a requesting entity asks whether a person is who he says he is. The Act’s stated purpose, and the ground on which it was introduced as a money bill, is the targeted delivery of subsidies, benefits and services whose expenditure is charged to the Consolidated Fund of India. Around this sit the protective provisions — the exclusion of caste, religion and income from demographic information, the bar on sharing core biometric information, the duty of security, the requirement of consent for authentication and the rule that the number is not proof of citizenship or domicile. Later litigation and amendment refined the scheme, but the sections named here are the original design.

The Aadhaar Act was barely a year old when this paper was set, which is characteristic: EPFO papers reach for recent legislation, especially legislation about the delivery of benefits, because that is the business the organisation is in. The question is set at the level of the statute’s first principles rather than its detail, and the citizen-versus-resident distinction is the single most commonly tested point in it — partly because it is counter-intuitive to candidates who think of Aadhaar as an identity card, and partly because it separates those who have read the Act from those who have read about it. The general lesson for the polity block of this paper is that the operative words of a section are worth more than any paraphrase of its purpose.

Key facts

Section 3(1) of the Aadhaar Act, 2016 entitles every resident to obtain an Aadhaar number by submitting demographic and biometric information and undergoing enrolment.
The Act defines a resident as an individual who has resided in India for a period totalling 182 days or more in the twelve months immediately preceding the application for enrolment.
Section 9 provides that an Aadhaar number or its authentication is not by itself proof of citizenship or domicile.
Demographic information under the Act excludes race, religion, caste, tribe, ethnicity, language, records of entitlement, income and medical history.
Biometric information includes a photograph, finger prints and an iris scan, and such other biological attributes as may be specified by regulations.
The Unique Identification Authority of India is constituted by the Act and is responsible for enrolment, for issuing numbers, for the Central Identities Data Repository and for authentication.
The Authority is under a statutory duty to ensure the security of identity information and authentication records, and core biometric information may not be shared.

The statute says resident, and defines it by days of presence

(a) ‘Only citizens’ — the false claim→Section 3(1) provides that every resident shall be entitled to obtain an Aadhaar number by submitting his demographic information and biometric information and undergoing the process of enrolment. The word is resident, not citizen.

What ‘resident’ means in the Act→An individual who has resided in India for a period totalling one hundred and eighty-two days or more in the twelve months immediately preceding the date of application for enrolment. Residence, tested by days of presence, is the qualification; nationality is irrelevant to it.

The Act says so from the other side too→Section 9 provides that an Aadhaar number, or the authentication of one, shall not by itself confer any right of, or be proof of, citizenship or domicile. The design follows the purpose: the number is identity infrastructure for delivering subsidies and services charged to the Consolidated Fund of India, so it has to reach everyone the state is delivering to.

(b) Both kinds of information — a feature→From the same sentence of section 3(1). Demographic information covers name, date of birth and address, and expressly excludes race, religion, caste, tribe, ethnicity, language, records of entitlement, income and medical history; biometric information covers a photograph, finger prints and an iris scan.

(c) The Authority runs it — a feature→The Act establishes the Unique Identification Authority of India as a statutory body to specify what information is collected, collect it, issue numbers, maintain the Central Identities Data Repository and perform authentication. Before this Act it had existed only by executive order.

(d) The duty of security — a feature→The Authority must ensure the security of identity information and of authentication records, and take safeguards against access, use or disclosure the Act does not permit. Core biometric information may not be shared with anyone, or used for any purpose other than generating numbers and authentication.

Study next

The Aadhaar Act, 2016: enrolment, authentication, the Central Identities Data Repository and the offences chapterDirect benefit transfer and the use of Aadhaar in subsidy deliveryPrivacy and data protection in India — the right to privacy as a fundamental right and the framework that followedThe money bill route under Article 110 and why it was used for this ActStatutory versus constitutional bodies, and where the Unique Identification Authority of India sits

Common traps

Reading resident as citizen. The Act turns on 182 days of presence, not on nationality.
Treating Aadhaar as an identity document that proves who belongs to the country. The statute expressly denies it that effect.
Assuming the demographic information collected includes caste or religion. Both are excluded by definition.
Missing the emphasised not and selecting a statement that is plainly a feature of the Act.

Questions on recent statutes in this exam family are answered from four or five operative provisions rather than from the whole Act, and those provisions are always the same kind: who is entitled, what must be submitted, which authority administers it, what duties that authority owes, and what the instrument does not do. Learning an Act in that shape covers every version of the question. The negative form used here is the commonest, because it lets the examiner put three accurate statements beside one that inverts a defined term — resident into citizen, may into shall, notified into automatic.

Related PYQs

EPFO_EOAO_2017_Q36Open & attempt →

Which one of the following statements regarding an Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) is not correct?

(a) An OCI is a citizen of another country.
(b) An OCI possesses multiple-entry long-term visa for visiting India.
(c) An OCI is at par with NRIs in all matters.
(d) An OCI is not entitled to the fundamental right to equality of opportunity in public employment.

Answer(c) An OCI is at par with NRIs in all matters.

The Overseas Citizen of India item immediately before this one; both turn on the difference between a citizen and a person merely resident in or connected with India.

EPFO_EOAO_2017_Q40Open & attempt →

Which one of the following is not a constitutional body?

(a) The Election Commission of India
(b) The Finance Commission
(c) The Official Languages Commission
(d) The National Commission for Women

Answer(d) The National Commission for Women

The constitutional-body item at the end of this block; the Unique Identification Authority is the statutory counterpart of the bodies discussed there.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Under the Aadhaar Act, 2016, an individual qualifies as a resident if he has resided in India for a period totalling how many days in the twelve months preceding his application for enrolment?
- (a)90 days or more
- (b)120 days or more
- (c)182 days or more
- (d)365 days
Answer(c) 182 days or more
practice — not a real PYQ
Which of the following is expressly excluded from demographic information under the Aadhaar Act, 2016?
- (a)Name and address
- (b)Date of birth
- (c)Caste and religion
- (d)Gender
Answer(c) Caste and religion