Railways rolls back need for Aadhaar card for senior citizen's concessional tickets

The Railway ministry has now decided to pull down a mandate for the need to show an Aadhaar card for reserved tickets for senior citizens. According to the Times of India, senior citizens will no longer be denied concessions when booking railway tickets if they do not possess an Aadhaar card.The withdrawal comes just two weeks after the railways had made Aadhaar-based verification mandatory to avail concessional tickets for senior citizens.Western Railway's chief public relations officer Ravinder Bhakar told TOI that senior citizens will not be denied concessional railway tickets but will be required to carry some document as proof to show their age, or date of birth, if it is demanded by the on-board ticket checking staff.The Aadhaar-based ticketing system has been withdrawn with immediate effect and will bring plenty of relief to those who have yet to or register themselves on to the Aadhaar system.The government has been rooting for Aadhaar-based verification lately. The Indian government announced yesterday that having an Aadhaar card is mandatory to file income tax returns or applying for a PAN card.Recently the government is also said to have made Aadhaar-based e-KYC mandatory for mobile phone connections. The order issued by the DoT to telecom operators on Friday directs them to re-verify their customers on both prepaid and postpaid plans through an Aadhaar-based eKYC (know your customer) process by 6 February 2018.