Gaurav Sahu is back from the dead, officially.
The 30-year-old auto driver’s Aadhaar was reactivated on Friday; he was declared dead on official records after submitting his Aadhaar card to get an a patient–who later died– admitted in hospital last September.
“After following the standard operating procedure (SOP), the person’s Aadhaar card was reactivated within 72 hours of time period”, Deputy Director-General of UIDAI (Regional Office, Lucknow), Prashant Kumar Singh told HT on Friday. HT had highlighted Sahu’s plight in a report on Tuesday.
“I can’t even describe how alive I feel right now. I checked my status online and it is activated,” an elated Sahu said. He credited the media coverage for the swift resolution. “I can’t thank your newspaper enough for becoming the voice of the voiceless. Work that would have taken a year was done in three days,” he added.
On September 7, 2025, at the government-run Murari Lal Chest Hospital in Kanpur, Sahu found a young man, Ashish Srivastava, gasping for breath at the hospital entrance. As the patient carried no documents and hospital protocol required valid identification for admission, Sahu offered his own Aadhaar card to ensure immediate treatment.
Srivastava died five days later. In a clerical error, hospital staff recorded Sahu’s Aadhaar details on the deceased patient’s form instead of the patient’s own particulars.
Sahu discovered he was “dead” on paper this January when he went to collect his family’s monthly ration. He was turned away after records showed he was no longer alive. A subsequent visit to the post office confirmed that his Aadhaar had been deactivated due to “deceased status”.
For over a month, he went from office to office, narrating his ordeal and seeking a status correction, but received no relief. It was only after his story was reported that authorities acted.
District magistrate Jitendra Pratap Singh termed it a “grave mistake” and directed the health department to send a cancellation report to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). The chief medical officer’s office subsequently issued a formal letter cancelling his “deceased” status.
The UIDAI retook his biometric and matched them with the ones in data centre in Bengaluru after the centre was informed about the error by UIDAI Kanpur on Wednesday.
Sahu visited his bank and the local ration shop to verify his status. He was told that his Aadhaar is active and that a fresh ration card for his family of six will be issued shortly.
“Today, I got my life back,” he said.