There is every indication now that life without the Aadhar number is about to become impossible in India. The government had made the quoting of the 12-digit biometric identifier Aadhar mandatory for old and new bank accounts as well is for fincial transactions of Rs 50,000 and above. The earlier deadline for this was December 31, 2017. This has been extended to March 31, 2018. An official release issued recently in New Delhi says: “It has been decided to notify 31 March, 2018 or six months from the date of commencement of account-based relationship by the client, whichever is later, as the date of submission of the Aadhar number and permanent account number or Form 60 by the clients to the reporting entity.” The decision to extend the deadline was taken after various representations as well as inputs were received from banks. The Centre had informed the Supreme Court last week that it was willing to extend the deadline for the mandatory linking of Aadhar to bank accounts, mutual funds, credit and debit cards, cell phones, domestic gas consumer cards and so on.