Seventy-six-year-old Janardan Bisaria, retired BSF commandant, was shocked to learn that he was not "eligible" to get a UID card. "Despite trying several times the machine did not accept my wife's and my fingerprints. The organisers of the camp gave us in writing that our finger prints were not acceptable," he told DNA.
Like him other elderly couples returned without their scans as well. Retired justice RS Verma, who has pronounced several judgments in his life, didn't know the shocking judgment in store for him. "It was news to me that some senior citizens were deprived from the scheme. Aren't we the citizens of the country," questioned Verma, who had to return halfway after being informed by his neighbours that the machines at UID camps were not recognising fingerprints of elderly people.
In some camps, children below eight years of age were not entertained for the UID card. In a camp in Mansarovar, some children were returned with a sly assurance that these camps would be organised several times in their life, so they would not be deprived of a UID card.
Officials at Vakrangee Software Ltd, the company which was outsourced the work by the Union Bank of India, said the problem was universal.