By Express News Service - CHENNAI
19th February 2013 07:59 AM
From gas cylinders to SIM cards for mobile phones, even private service providers haven’t been known to be kind to newbies in the city.
How many proofs do you need to make a phone call in Chennai? Not too many, unless you’re looking to make a call from your own mobile phone and wish to buy a SIM card in your name. The need to have a local ID card doesn’t end there — it extends to services from healthcare to car rentals, to movie-watching to claiming a relative’s body from the morgue at the GH. The average Chennai makkal may be more upwardly mobile than the nomad who sought help from the HC to get his father’s body released, despite his not having any form of identification, but their plight is often as helpless as his case was. TNIE takes a look around.
No ID? Sorry, no cylinder!
For the rather large number of ‘new’ Chennaiites or migrants to the city, getting basic services without a local address is still a hassle in the metro. From gas cylinders to SIM cards for mobile phones, even private service providers haven’t been known to be kind to newbies in the city.
Before accessing any of these services, the essential prerequisite is having a bank account, as wedding videographer Prabhu, a native of Kumbakkonam, found out after moving here, “I have no rental agreement or any proof to show I have been living in Chennai. They gave me an option of getting an ‘introduction’ from another member, but even that didn’t work out. I tried for it for some time and got tired,” says the videographer, who has now wised up after four years of living here.
At least he spoke Tamil. Things were much worse for Tibetan student Dorji Kyi who came here to study. “At the bank, I tried explaining to them that I had just arrived in the city and needed to open a bank account so my sponsors could send me my scholarship money, but they insisted on a ration card or driver’s licence,” she relates.
The major problem that a lack of an ID bearing a local address poses, is getting a cooking gas cylinder. It took close to a month of running around for 3D animator Vinod Kumar to get an LPG connection. A native of Vellore, who now resides in Adambakkam, he applied for a PAN card as the gas agency said it was enough to have at least a photo proof first. “I had to search for houses where landlords agree to give a rental agreement. Many of them refused an agreement. Finally, the agency accepted a letter from my company after they felt sorry for me for walking in to their office almost every day,” he says. Even Dorji agrees. When she provided them with her refugee passport and detailed photo-ID card issued by the exile government in Dharamsala, the LPG companies flatly refused, “We still buy expensive commercial gas cylinders, after living here for six years,” she laments. “Officials in Chennai do not want to consider ID proof issued in any other states,” she complains.
If these domestic services are difficult to obtain, people say that it’s nothing short of a nightmare to get an ID like a voters card. Mageshwaran, a visual effects artiste from Cumbum, who settled with his family in T Nagar five years ago, is yet to get a voter’s ID for his wife Kalaivani. “I applied to get her a voter ID in Saidapet. They asked me for documents like a marriage certificate, ration card and rental agreement. I applied for all this and got them after a long wait. I changed houses to get the agreement. It has been many weeks now since I applied, I still haven’t got it. I am ashamed to say that I even bribed officials but they are still giving me excuses like the paper has not moved from one officer to another,” he says.
And if you happen to lose your ID cards, then heaven help you. When social worker Sapna Abraham was called to Africa for a project two years ago, she put all her original IDs—driving licence, PAN card, passport and bank passbook in her bag, to be taken to be photocopied. Her bag was stolen on a bus, and that was the last she saw of her IDs.
“I made numerous trips to the police station, filed an FIR, spent days waiting at the RTO — for 6 months, I did all I could to apply for fresh IDs. Every step of the way, the cops kept making up unnecessary new procedures and new difficulties. They kept sending me back, asking for lawyer’s signatures, new documents, new photographs and made me rewrite the complaint six times.
Their behaviour bordered on harassment, as at the end of six months, they asked me to come back with my father!,” she says.
It has been two years, and she has not gotten any of her IDs back, not even the lost passport, which could be a matter of national security.
Travelling at night? Carry your ID
Planning to travel at night or attend a late-night party? Carry a valid identity card with you. The cops can stop you and demand to see your ID card. Reason: It is the time when criminals are on the prowl.
That is why the movement of people at night comes under the police scanner. While there is no provision in law whereby the men in khaki can restrict the movement of people, they can stop night travellers and question them. “It is usually in the nature of a casual enquiry,” a senior police official said.
If the person is able to account satisfactorily for his movements – where he is coming from and where he is headed for, and produce an identity card, he is let off. The “casual enquiry,” however, can turn “serious,” when the person is not able to do so. He is then taken to the police station, where his claims and credentials are ascertained before he is let off – or further detained when they turn out to be false.
The police can also demand ID in the event of seeing persons loitering near a teashop, on the streets or on the bridge overlooking sensitive places like the airport or railway station.
Also, identity proof, by way of records, should be presented during vehicul checks. Cops may also demand to see your ID during checks conducted in lodging houses and hotels.
However, ID proof is not mandatory while seeking to file a case at the police station. “The person is a victim. We may ask for ID, while registering the details. But it is not a prerequisite to file a case,” the police official said.
Aadhar or UID cards are no solution, feel activists
Unique Identification Number (UID) or Aadhar cards cannot be a solution to identity proof problems, feel activists.
Activist A Marx, who has also written a book on Aadhar cards, said, “If the Aadhar card becomes a part of our daily life it will become very difficult to maintain privacy. Everything can be accessed by the government. Also, if an illiterate does not know the card number or if he loses his card, then it would become very difficult for him to survive. The Aadhar card might turn out to be an essential element in all other schemes and services such as NREGA, ration cards, but it is impossible to implement UID in a country of over 100 crore people.”
Another activist A Muthukrishnan said, “The view that the Aadhar card will solve identity proof issues, is incorrect. In Western countries, it was possible to implement such a system since they had very good software networks. But here, we don’t have such good software networks. Moreover, many of the countries in the West decentralised the pooled-in data, indicating security reasons. Some countries even abolished such systems. At this juncture, we are trying to bring the system into practice.”
“The finger prints, iris scans and other identity indicators will constantly change due to health and working conditions. So, it becomes hard for a person to prove his/her identity through the UID cards,” he added.
Post Office ID cards come to the rescue
Struggling without proof of address in the city? Knock on the doors of your nearest Post Office to get one. In what could be a sigh of relief for migrants, who do not possess any notified document to establish their residential proof in the State, Tamil Nadu Postal Circle is offering Postal Identity Cards.
The Post Office ID cards, official sources said, can be used as address proof for various purposes. Launched about three years ago, the facility was first launched in Tamil Nadu and expanded to the rest of the country later, sources added. A resident can obtain the card by applying with Post Offices in Chennai and its suburbs. After an inspection by the Public Relations Inspector from the Postal Department to ensure that the applicant is indeed residing in the address, which he or she has mentioned in the application form, the Post Office ID Card will be issued. “However, if it comes to our notice that the applicant is not residing in the address at the time of inspection, the application will be rejected,” a source claimed.
The initiative has become a big hit among the migrant professionals, particularly those working in the Information Technology sector, sources stated. “When we offered it as a business package, it had several takers from Information Technology companies situated in the city, which employs a chunk of migrant professionals. It is valid for a period of three years,” official sources said.
In a bid to make the cards more attractive, the Tamil Nadu Circle is issuing these in the form of smart cards, incorporating information such as the date of birth, telephone/mobile number and blood group, in addition to the address of the person. “We have issued about 5,000 Postal ID cards,” a senior official with a Head Post Office in the city stated.
(by U Tejonmayam, Anisha Francis, R Guhambika, N Vinoth Kumar and Yogesh Kabirdoss)
