While making a fervent appeal to all citizens to enrol themselves for Aadhaar card, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, chairperson of UPA Sonia Gandhi and chairman of UIDAI Nandan Nilekani cannot disclose whether they follow what they preach, as the information is “personal”.
This is the interesting response that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has given to an RTI applicant from city who sought to know if these prominent citizens who also included Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission, have enrolled themselves or not. “The information sought is personal hence treated as third party information which is exempted from disclosure under Section 8 (1) (j) of RTI Act, 2005”, was the response from the designated authority.
Equally strange was the response to two other queries posed by the RTI activist, D. Rakesh Kumar, on the number of MPs and Union Cabinet Ministers who have enrolled.
The reply was: “The UIDAI has been mandated to generate and issue and provide a Unique identity (Aadhaar) number to all residents of India. Aadhaar is a random 12-digit number and no profiling is done on the basis of caste, creed, religion or economic status”.
Disappointed with the “pathetic” reply, Mr. Rakesh has written an open letter to Mr. Nilekani wondering why UIDAI is denying the citizens such basic information.
“I have sought this information in larger public interest so that your dream of Aadhaar for every Indian could be realised. These details if provided could have inspired millions of Indians who were critical of the UIDAI after they saw hens and goats being enrolled with unique IDs…”
COPY OF LETTER FROM UIDAI
