India's Aadhaar initiative was conceived as a revolutionary step towards digital identification and welfare inclusion for the country's enormous population. Introduced in 2010, Aadhaar had pledged an unprecedented identification for all citizens to rationalize government benefits, reduce leakages, and enable financial inclusion.
The center of this effort was Ranjana Sonawane, a humble Tembhli village resident in Maharashtra, recorded in history as India's first Aadhaar card holder. Her journey, emblematic of Aadhaar’s hopes and the system’s subsequent failings, is both socially and technologically significant.
The First Aadhaar Card Holder: Ranjana Sonawane
Ranjana Sonawane was the first person to be issued an Aadhaar card in India in 2010. Her appointment as the first holder of Aadhaar was symbolic and also strategic: she was a 54-year-old from a disadvantaged rural district, selected to highlight the mission of Aadhaar to close welfare divides and reach the most disadvantaged parts of society.
Her photograph was publicly circulated, immediately making her a representative of the government's push for digitization.
The Process and Implementation
The series of events leading to Sonawane being issued the card started when the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) initiated Aadhaar enrollment in Sonawane's village, Tembhli, in the Nandurbar district. The project entailed biometric registration by way of fingerprint and iris scans, in addition to demographic data.
Sonawane's Aadhaar number was supposed to open doors to numerous government schemes, subsidies, and direct benefit transfers (DBTs), with her case serving as a template for large-scale rollout nationwide.
Later Challenges and Realities
Despite the intention of Aadhaar, Sonawane's case suggests bigger problems in the system. Fifteen years after joining, she struggles to receive even basic welfare programs like Maharashtra's Ladki Bahin scheme.
Check Out: World's Best Airlines 2025: These are the top 7 best airlines
Even though the state claims to deposit stipends in her bank account associated with Aadhaar, she receives no payments, including key issues of account linkage, transparency, and governmental apathy. The account that it was to credit can even not be hers, and many family visits to banks and local government offices have, so far, been of no avail.
These problems are a reflection of country-wide systemic trends: technical glitches, enrolment errors, and Aadhaar–bank account mapping transparency have kept thousands of individuals, including many rural women, locked out of their rightful entitlements. For instance, nearly 73% of the DBT recipients surveyed indicate payment issues, of which a maximum of 18% are Aadhaar-related account discrepancies.
Check Out: Which are the 5 Smallest Countries in Europe? Check List by Area
Recipients do not know which account is being deducted against their Aadhaar due to the complicated Active Payments Bridge System (APBS), managed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) itself.
Ranjana Sonawane's trajectory from the face of a revolutionary movement to the casualty of its structural failures is a turn of fate in India's socio-digital narrative. While Aadhaar remains an award-winning identity infrastructure—over ₹11,000 crore by 2019—its continued challenges are a reminder to policy makers and technologists that digital inclusion is no more powerful than its last-mile implementation and accountability. Sonawane's story is simultaneously a cautionary one and an appeal to ensure that India's technological ambitions are always kept aligned with the realities, rights, and needs of its people.
Comments
All Comments (0)
Join the conversation