Wed Sep 29 2010, 02:31 hrs
Chinki Sinha
Sleeping on the road
Two days after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh launches the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) project in Tembhali, a remote tribal village in Nandurbar district of Maharashtra, the Capital will begin enrolling its first beneficiaries under the scheme — the homeless.
According to Sandeep Saxena of Mission Convergence, Delhi will start enrolling the people at the bottom of its social rung on October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. Around 40 homeless people housed in a night shelter called Apna Ghar Nizamuddin Rainbasera will be the first to be enrolled in the drive.
As one of the states where the UIDAI pilot project would be carried out, enrolments will be done through the night in Delhi with the aid of mobile vehicles, officials said. The process would be set off with an inauguration at the Society of Promotion of Youth and Masses in Nizamuddin, the Homeless Citizen Resource Centre for South Zone. It may, however, not be a big affair due to the Commonwealth Games, which is scheduled to begin on October 3, officials said, adding that Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit may be asked to inaugurate the project as she had launched the Mission Convergence Scheme in the Capital. “She may have a tight schedule because of the Games,” an official from St Stephen’s Hospital said, adding that they expect to cover at least 100 people on the day of the launch.