New Delhi, March 3 The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has completed mandatory biometric updates for students in over 1 lakh schools within six months of launching the initiative, benefiting approximately 1.2 crore school children, an official statement said on Tuesday.
The mandatory biometric update (MBU) drive, conducted on a national scale, is ongoing for six months, and UIDAI has made MBU for children aged 7-15 free of cost for a period of one year, starting October 1, 2025.
In addition to camps held at schools, children can also complete their MBU by visiting any of the Aadhaar enrolment centres and Aadhaar Seva Kendras across India, the statement said.
"In a significant achievement, UIDAI has covered over 1,03,000 schools across India and helped millions of school children complete their mandatory biometric update in Aadhaar comfortably and conveniently within their school campuses," the statement said.
Keeping biometric updates in children's Aadhaar helps them, while performing authentication for receiving benefits under various government schemes, scholarships, wherever applicable, and registering in competitive and university examinations like NEET, JEE, CUET, etc.
So far, the exercise has helped around 1.2 crore school children complete their MBU right in their school campuses, the statement said.
UIDAI launched the mission-mode MBU drive for school children in September 2025, after a successful technological integration with the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) application.
The integration with UDISE+ of the Union Department of School Education & Literacy enabled the visibility of the MBU status of children at schools. It helped to identify children who were due for an MBU and hold camps at schools to complete the MBU.
At least 4,000 machines are being used to execute the ongoing exercise, and UIDAI is in the process of further increasing this number to accelerate the pace.
A child under the age of five can enroll for Aadhaar by providing the photograph, name, date of birth, gender, address, and birth certificate, but the fingerprints and iris biometrics of a child are not captured for Aadhaar enrolment below the age of five as these indicators are not mature by then.
Therefore, providing fingerprints and iris information in Aadhaar by following the MBU process, upon crossing the ages of 5 and 15 years, is an essential requirement for children.