If you have enrolled under the home ministry's national population register (NPR) more than six months ago and have not received your unique identification or Aadhaar number, there is a possibility of you not getting the number.
The reason for this is disk failure resulting in your Aadhaar number not being generated.
Aadhaar generation of thousands of people across India has failed because of an error in disks in which enrollment data was stored and provided to unique identification authority for de-duplication -- the technical process before Aadhaar number is created.
Government officials said some of the hard disks provided by the ministry's census commissioner and private enrollers of UIDAI had a problem because of which part of the data got corrupted. Each disk had demographic data of around 20,000 people.
But, the government has remained silent on the technical failure and the only way to know about it was by logging on to the UIDAI website.
"I have been waiting for my Aadhaar number for almost six months. Now, I am told that my enrollment has failed. The government did not inform me," said Deepinder Singh at a UIDAI enrollment centre in north Delhi, where he had gone to inquire about his Aadhaar number.
There is a mad rush number in several states as government has linked welfare measures with Aadhaar number. The enrollers at UIDAI centers have been telling people to wait not knowing that de-duplication has failed, creating confusion for people.
Those who have checked their Aadhaar status on the UIDAI website were able to learn about the hard reality. However, UIDAI does not have a figure for such people.
The disk failure error may not happen for those enrolling now, UIDAI officials said.
The authority has provided online facility to all enrollers including NPR to upload the demographic data of residents through a new tamper-proof sync mechanism.
"The uploading facility can be done only through authorised computers," an official said.
The new mechanism, officials said, would fasten the Aadhaar generation process.
"Aadhaar number would be generated within a fortnight if the demographic data passes through all technical parameters," the official said.
The earlier system took at least a month to generate an Aadhaar number and even more if delivery of hard disk took time.
Of the six crore persons enrolled by NPR Aadhaar numbers of around four crore have been generated.
Officials said the delay in generating these Aadhaar numbers was because of duplication as substantial number of people have enrolled twice -- once through UIDAI and then under the NPR regime.