Maharashtra suspends four firms from Aadhaar enrolment
The Maharashtra government has suspended four companies for poor performance and flouting guidelines while enrolling residents for the unique identity or Aadhaar programme.
The state government has informed both the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and the home ministry’s National Population Register (NPR) about the suspension. The companies won’t be involved in the enrolment process until the suspension is revoked. A copy of the letters, which are identical, has been reviewed by Mint.
The suspension could delay one of the government’s key initiatives aimed at the better targeting of social welfare measures. The home ministry had earlier raised objections to the procedures through which UIDAI collects biometrics and data of residents before the dispute was resolved in January.
Two companies set up centres at the premises of political parties, said Santosh Bhogle, under secretary in the Maharashtra government’s information technology department. “It is a clear violation of state guidelines,” he said. “The other two companies were suspended due to non-performance.”
The companies empanelled with UIDAI—Smart Chip Ltd, MphasiS Ltd, Vakrangee Softwares Ltd and Strategic Outsourcing Services Pvt. Ltd—were suspended in January, soon after which the authority was informed. The letter to NPR was sent last month.
A total of 13 agencies were engaged to enrol residents in the state. The 12-digit Aadhaar number was conceived as a unique identity nationally acceptable by banks, telecom providers, oil companies and other government agencies. NPR’s key mandate is security.
Vakrangee Softwares denied it had been suspended.
“We have not received any such communication. We completely deny any such suspension,” said Abhishek Sharma, senior manager, finance and investor relations. The firm has completed the work it was supposed to undertake during the enrolment of 200 million residents by UIDAI across India, he said. Work will resume as the authority starts enrolling another 400 million people, he said.
Smart Chip denied that there had been any suspension and that it has always been compliant with the norms.
“There has been no suspension/ blacklisting of Smart Chip Ltd, and we are gearing up for mass enrollments in the phase II of the UID enrollments roll out as per the guidelines of the registrar of the area we have been allotted to work,” the company said in an email.
MphasiS declined to comment. “As a policy, MphasiS does not comment on its customer projects externally,” a spokesperson said.
Strategic Outsourcing did not respond to queries sent last week.
Under a 27 January compromise, UIDAI was given the mandate to collect biometrics for 400 million more residents on top of the 200 million it had already covered. NPR agreed to accept biometric data collected by Aadhaar with the caveat that where there was an overlap or a conflict over data, NPR-compiled metrics would prevail.
Aadhaar was given the mandate to enrol people in 16 states and Union territories and NPR in the rest of the country. Proponents of the two projects had been at loggerheads over which one would collect biometrics for the entire population of the country.
The home ministry had stated that UIDAI data can’t be trusted for “security” purposes and wanted to collect its own biometrics. The second phase of UIDAI is said to begin shortly.
Poor performance, flouting of guidelines cited as reasons;
move may delay the unique identity programme
Sahil Makkar, sahil.m@livemint.com
The Maharashtra government has suspended four companies for poor performance and flouting guidelines while enrolling residents for the unique identity or Aadhaar programme.
The state government has informed both the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and the home ministry’s National Population Register (NPR) about the suspension. The companies won’t be involved in the enrolment process until the suspension is revoked. A copy of the letters, which are identical, has been reviewed by Mint.
The suspension could delay one of the government’s key initiatives aimed at the better targeting of social welfare measures. The home ministry had earlier raised objections to the procedures through which UIDAI collects biometrics and data of residents before the dispute was resolved in January.
Two companies set up centres at the premises of political parties, said Santosh Bhogle, under secretary in the Maharashtra government’s information technology department. “It is a clear violation of state guidelines,” he said. “The other two companies were suspended due to non-performance.”
The companies empanelled with UIDAI—Smart Chip Ltd, MphasiS Ltd, Vakrangee Softwares Ltd and Strategic Outsourcing Services Pvt. Ltd—were suspended in January, soon after which the authority was informed. The letter to NPR was sent last month.
A total of 13 agencies were engaged to enrol residents in the state. The 12-digit Aadhaar number was conceived as a unique identity nationally acceptable by banks, telecom providers, oil companies and other government agencies. NPR’s key mandate is security.
Vakrangee Softwares denied it had been suspended.
“We have not received any such communication. We completely deny any such suspension,” said Abhishek Sharma, senior manager, finance and investor relations. The firm has completed the work it was supposed to undertake during the enrolment of 200 million residents by UIDAI across India, he said. Work will resume as the authority starts enrolling another 400 million people, he said.
Smart Chip denied that there had been any suspension and that it has always been compliant with the norms.
“There has been no suspension/ blacklisting of Smart Chip Ltd, and we are gearing up for mass enrollments in the phase II of the UID enrollments roll out as per the guidelines of the registrar of the area we have been allotted to work,” the company said in an email.
MphasiS declined to comment. “As a policy, MphasiS does not comment on its customer projects externally,” a spokesperson said.
Strategic Outsourcing did not respond to queries sent last week.
Under a 27 January compromise, UIDAI was given the mandate to collect biometrics for 400 million more residents on top of the 200 million it had already covered. NPR agreed to accept biometric data collected by Aadhaar with the caveat that where there was an overlap or a conflict over data, NPR-compiled metrics would prevail.
Aadhaar was given the mandate to enrol people in 16 states and Union territories and NPR in the rest of the country. Proponents of the two projects had been at loggerheads over which one would collect biometrics for the entire population of the country.
The home ministry had stated that UIDAI data can’t be trusted for “security” purposes and wanted to collect its own biometrics. The second phase of UIDAI is said to begin shortly.
