Abu Dhabi: Aadhaar [India’s biometric ID card] number is not mandatory for obtaining a driver’s licence or a SIM card in India, according to the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi.

Aadhaar is one of the several documents recognised for address proof of the applicant, an embassy press release said on Monday.

This will give further relief to Indian expatriates who are worried about the requirement of Aadhaar for services and official transactions in India.

As Gulf News reported on Friday, the Indian government exempted non-resident Indians (NRIs) from the requirement of quoting Aadhaar number while filing income tax returns back home. NRIs are also exempted from quoting Aadhaar number while applying for PAN (Permanent Account Number — issued by income tax authorities for tax and financial transactions). The government had announced that Aaddhaar had to be mandatorily linked with PAN and an applicant had to quote Aadhaar number to get PAN with effect from July 1, 2017.

The exemption related to PAN has alleviated NRIs’ concerns about disruption of their banking transactions in India. Failure to link Aadhaar with PAN by June 30 make will make PAN redundant. PAN is already mandatory for several banking transactions, including to make cash deposits above Rupees 50,000 (Dh2,750). A redundant PAN for not having Aadhaar card will also affect NRIs who invest in Indian stock market, for which PAN is mandatory. The exemption has alleviated these fears of NRIs.

When Gulf News took up these concerns with the Indian Government, a top official had clarified that NRIs were not eligible for Aadhaar and government departments had to give exemptions to NRIs in this regard. “It is the responsibility of the relevant departments to give exemption to NRIs [on Aadhaar requirement],” Dr Ajay Bhushan Pandey, CEO, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), had told Gulf News in a telephone interview from New Delhi.

On Wednesday, India’s Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) made the first such announcement on exemption. The requirement to quote Aadhaar for filing income tax returns and for making an application for allotment of PAN with effect from July 1, 2017, shall not apply to non-residents Indians [NRIs], according to a CBDT press release.

It clarified that an Indian is considered a resident, if he/she has resided in India for a period or periods amounting in all to 182 days or more in the 12 months immediately preceding the date of application [for relevant services or documents like Aadhaar].

Although NRIs are exempted from income tax on their income abroad, they have to file tax returns for their income earned in India.

Many Indians in the UAE, who regularly file income tax returns in India but do not have Aadhaar, were worried after the government move to link Aadhaar with PAN.