2499 - MANY DEVICES LYING IDLE

MANY DEVICES LYING IDLE TN writes to UID on Aadhar delay Julie Mariappan TNN  Chennai: Tamil Nadu has accused the UID Authority of India of delaying the AADHAR process by failing to approve 500-odd operators, who have already cleared tests, to run biometric devices and web cameras to screen applicants in the state.      State officials say this could cause a further delay, by more than a year. Objecting to the “slow pace” of the project, chief secretary Debendranath Sarangi sent a letter to the UIDAI on March 3, urging the authority to speed up the process. Officials of the UIDAI, both in Delhi and Bangalore could not be reached for comment.      Glitches in the ambitious AADHAR programme, led by Nandan Nilekeni, following differences between the Union home ministry and the UIDAI were ironed out by the Union Cabinet in February.      The Centre decided to allow the UIDAI to continue to enrol 60 crore Indians in the 16 states/union territories where it had made extensive progress and leave the remaining states to the Census which falls under the home ministry.      In Tamil Nadu, it is the directorate of census operations which was given the mandate to execute the programme.      “But, at least 2,000-odd devices are lying idle for want of operators (to be provided by the UIDAI),” said census operations director S Gopalakrishnan. The delay was also caused by the absence of more testing centres for eligible candidates to write online tests for operating biometric devices. Chennai has only one testing centre while neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, where the UIDAI runs the AADHAR programme, has five testing centres.      “We need more number of operators so that they can take up the work immediately and end by December this year,” said Gopalakrishnan.      Besides, none of the 20 lakh persons in nine districts in the state, whose parameters were collected, have been given the AADHAR numbers.      In districts like Pudukottai and Trichy where enumeration began in June last year, a few taluks have been fully covered and two taluks in Cuddalore are to be completed shortly.      Similarly, enumeration is on in Tiruvannamalai, Ariyalur, Perambalur, Karur, Erode and Madurai districts.      The state government wants to use the biometric parameters for its social security schemes and bio-metric based ration cards.      julie.mariappan@timesgroup.com