UIDAI completes Aadhaar biometric updates for 1.2 crore students: Govt

New Delhi, March 3 : In a major achievement, the Unique Identification Authority of India has covered more than 1.03 lakh schools across the country to help students complete their mandatory biometric update (MBU) in Aadhaar easily within their school campuses, Ministry of Electronics & IT said on Tuesday.

So far, around 1.2 crore school children have completed their biometric updates under this large-scale drive.

The exercise aims to ensure that children’s Aadhaar details remain accurate and up to date, which is important for availing government benefits and services.

UIDAI launched the mission mode MBU drive for school children in September 2025 after successfully integrating its system with the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE ) application.

This integration with UDISE , managed by the Union Department of School Education and Literacy, allowed authorities to track the biometric update status of students in schools.

It helped identify children whose biometric updates were pending and enabled the organisation of special camps within school premises, the ministry stated.

UIDAI’s regional and state offices have been working closely with state education departments, district administrations, schools and other ecosystem partners to carry out the exercise smoothly.

Around 4,000 machines are currently being used for the drive, and the authority is in the process of increasing this number to speed up the work, as per the official data.

Updating children’s biometrics in Aadhaar is important as it helps them during authentication for various government schemes, scholarships and registrations for competitive and university entrance examinations such as NEET, JEE and CUET.

UIDAI has been urging parents and guardians to ensure that their children complete this mandatory update.

The mission mode drive has been ongoing for the past six months. To encourage participation, UIDAI has made the biometric update for children in the 7 to 15 age group free of cost for one year starting October 1, 2025.

Apart from school camps, children can also visit Aadhaar enrolment centres and Aadhaar Seva Kendras across the country to complete their biometric updates.