Lawrence Milton & H M AravindLawrence Milton & H M Aravind, TNN | Dec 13, 2011, 03.44AM IST
MYSORE: In mid-April 2010, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) started to map the data in Mysore district for its ambitious Aadhaar project. At the end of 2011, 98% of some 30 lakh population in the district has been enrolled to get their Unique Identification (UID) number.
The project that was formally launched on October 8, 2010, by then chief minister B S Yeddyurappa, has been successful as far as enrolment is concerned. But there are problems in the delivery of Aadhaar, since many who have been put through the exercise have not received their document even after six months have lapsed.
Assistant director (statistics) M B Padmashekar Pande, who is district Aadhaar project coordinator, said they have covered over 98% of the population under the project in the district. The coordinator said the enrolment work was assigned to private firms and the details were sent to the e-governance department and from there to the UIDAI for issuing unique numbers to the residents. As the authority dispatches the unique number directly to the addressee through post, there could be delay in getting it due to technical reasons, he said.
If the softcopy of photocopies sent to the UIDAI contains any virus, it would be sent back for debugging. If the person is not living at the given address, the document will remain with postal department or e-governance department. Scores of people have enrolled twice due to delay and this has also has resulted in the delay because UIDAI does de-duplication process to avoid doubling, Pande explained.
The district administration has opened two centres including one at MysoreOne to cover the remaining population. The district administration had opened 132 centres to achieve the goal. For the record, the project to get a sample for the mammoth task to allot 16-digit Aadhaar to 600 million in India in five years, took baby steps in seven villages in Mysore district, where the pilot project was launched in mid-April. The villagers were asked to establish their identity before they were photographed. The UIDAI got 20,000 samples from cross sections of society each from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. The field trails were conducted to see how the system put in place by the UIDAI was working out at the ground level. Initially, when the project was launched in October 2010, the goal was to cover the entire population by December, 2010.
Within some two months after the project was launched, one lakh applications seeking Aadhaar were received. In neighbouring Chamarajnagar district, where enrollment was started two months ago, 81,333 have been enrolled. The district which has a population of 10,20,962 as per the latest census report, has opened 15 centres, a majority of them located in the urban part for enrollment, a senior official stated.
MANDYA
With the help of the district administration, a total 15 Aadhaar enrolment centres have been established in various parts of Mandya district. Seven centers have been issuing the cards in Mandya city alone and six centres are functional in all six taluk headquarters. One centre has been established in Arakere village of Srirangapatna taluk.
Additional deputy commissioner P C Jayanna said as on December 11, a total of 54,611 people have enrolled themselves for Aadhaar in the district. In Mandya city, a total 34, 654 people registered for it.
However, Mandya district is far behind in achieving the target of covering the population under the scheme by the end of March, 2012. Though the process to issue the document started on October 10, 2011, only 3.02% of people enrolled for Aadhaar. The total population of Manday district is 18,08,680 lakh.
Jayanna said that in the coming days, more centres will be established in the district headquarters and will be extended to all taluk headquarters. Later, stations will be established for each gram panchayat. To reach out to remote villages where transport facility is not available, mobile centres will be launched. "We planned to establish 250 centres in the district. The government has released Rs 3 lakh for advertising the importance of Aadhaar, he said.