The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the use of Aadhaar for four more government schemes, as long as the Centre makes it clear that the card is voluntary, not mandatory. The question of privacy has caused the Supreme Court to be circumspect in allowing the government to link the card with many of its projects.

The Aadhaar card gives citizens a unique identification number to access public schemes using their biometric and other personal data. This raised concerns that the right to privacy could be violated. Since then, a constitutional bench has been asked to clarify whether privacy is a fundamental right.

On Wednesday, the Centre promised the court that no citizen would be denied benefits just because they did not have an Aadhaar card. The court has now extended the use of Aadhaar, which was limited to the public distribution system and the supply of LPG and kerosene, to pensions, provident fund, Jan Dhan Yojana and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.