DC | 24th Aug 2013
Bengaluru: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and Centre for e-Governance, Karnataka have agreed to defer the deadline for linking Provident Fund (PF) accounts with Aadhaar numbers.
Lakhs of employed persons in Bengaluru were in a fix after the Employees’ Provident Fund made the Aadhaar card mandatory for having a PF account. The Karnataka & Goa Region of EPFO had issued a notification to employers to submit the Aadhaar cards of their employees by June 30, 2013. But very few employees have an Aadhaar card.
“After discussions with the UIDAI, the EPFO has relaxed the deadline and has not fixed a new one, while the Government of Karnataka has set itself a target of March 2014 for enrolment of all residents of Karnataka for Aadhaar,” said a senior official in UIDAI.
To achieve the target, the GoK, which is the registrar for the UIDAI in Karnataka, has opened new enrolment centres. A call centre and the facility to schedule appointments for enrolment have made enrolment easier.
The appointment-based enrolment centres have helped working professionals who are not willing to wait in long queues and waste time. The UIDAI official quoted above said that this has been a popular move.
Bangalore has 10 model Aadhaar enrolment centres, seven appointment-based enrolment centres, a call centre and e Aadhaar services. Around 65% of Bangaloreans have been enrolled till August 23, 2013. Aadhaar numbers have been generated for 55% of the population. Some 27,114,336 people in Karnataka have been enrolled, making it the fifth highest enrolment among states.