13 JAN, 2011, 05.27AM IST, HARSIMRAN JULKA,ET BUREAU
NEW DELHI: The Unique ID Authority is enrolling about 50,000 Aadhaar citizens per day, but it will have to multiply its efforts eight times to achieve the target of 60 crore citizens with Aadhaar number by 2014. The authority issued the 1.1 millionth Aadhaar number in January .
According to the current rate, about 1.82 crore enrollments would be achieved this year. The authority will have to multiply its efforts over eight times to achieve 4.1 lakh enrollments per day, to achieve the “60 crore citizens target in four years under Aadhaar” .
The number is currently low because most of the districts in India have not yet started enrollments, and vendors are complaining of low margins in their business of Aadhaar enrollment.
Many vendors have bid about Rs 15 per enrollment due to competition . About 300 vendors are empanelled for enrollment across India, while the average bid price per enrollment is about Rs 30 across India. Some are complaining about slowness in enrollment due to high operational costs due to low margins.
"We raised the issue of low margins to the authority in our last meeting. States are being greedy and not willing to shell out more," said a vendor requesting anonymity.
The government has capped the maximum amount to be awarded per enrollment at Rs 50, and state governments have been made registrars.
Many vendors who bid as low as Rs 15 per enrollment are now realising that data collection of crores of citizens is not a cheap task. "State governments are awarding bids to the lowest bidders rather than seeing the quality of data collection," said another vendor, who is awaiting the award of a bid in Jharkhand .
Vendors were also pulled up for slowness in a recent meeting by the authority. It was low bidding that led to the pullout of many firms in the government's multi-crore citizen service centres scheme.
According to the current rate, about 1.82 crore enrollments would be achieved this year. The authority will have to multiply its efforts over eight times to achieve 4.1 lakh enrollments per day, to achieve the “60 crore citizens target in four years under Aadhaar” .
The number is currently low because most of the districts in India have not yet started enrollments, and vendors are complaining of low margins in their business of Aadhaar enrollment.
Many vendors have bid about Rs 15 per enrollment due to competition . About 300 vendors are empanelled for enrollment across India, while the average bid price per enrollment is about Rs 30 across India. Some are complaining about slowness in enrollment due to high operational costs due to low margins.
"We raised the issue of low margins to the authority in our last meeting. States are being greedy and not willing to shell out more," said a vendor requesting anonymity.
The government has capped the maximum amount to be awarded per enrollment at Rs 50, and state governments have been made registrars.
Many vendors who bid as low as Rs 15 per enrollment are now realising that data collection of crores of citizens is not a cheap task. "State governments are awarding bids to the lowest bidders rather than seeing the quality of data collection," said another vendor, who is awaiting the award of a bid in Jharkhand .
Vendors were also pulled up for slowness in a recent meeting by the authority. It was low bidding that led to the pullout of many firms in the government's multi-crore citizen service centres scheme.
