Arshad Ali Posted online: Tue Sep 24 2013, 02:12 hrs
Kolkata : Authorities would continue issuing Aadhaar cards across the state even as the Supreme Court today ruled that the card is not mandatory and that state governments must not insist on citizens to produce it in order to avail themselves of essential services.
While the DDG, National Population Register (NPR), under which the bio-metric enrolment (BME) is taking place, said he “has not received any orders” and so “can’t react”, the officials in the secretariat said they would continue with it until they receive another order from the superiors.
“I think there would be an appeal against the order of the apex court,” said a senior official, adding that the October 31 deadline to cover the districts of Howrah, Hooghly, Coochbehar, South Dinajpur, Malda, Nadia, Bankura and Kolkata is likely to be extended “by at least another month or so to cover round 1 and 2 at these places.
“We are yet to finish off with Round 1 in Bankura, South Dinajpur, Nadia and Malda. Round 2, although more of a mopping up exercise, would take at least a month,” the official said.
He also said that in any case, there would not be 100 per cent enrolment at any place.
Even with Hooghly, where the coverage had been about 82.5 per cent since the enrolment began on June11, 2012, NPR officials said meeting the October 31 deadline would be difficult, although they might just be able to do it.
As on September 21, the overall coverage in the state has been 43.4 per cent, with a rider that the NPR authorities have not been updated by ITIL, one of the three agencies entrusted with the responsibility of carrying out the BME, about the daily progress at eight districts — Nadia, Murshidabad, Malda, North and South Dinajpur, Jalpaiguri, Coochbehar and Darjeeling — for the last one week.
“Authenticated data is not flowing in because of a cessation of work inside the organisation,” said the official.
Referring to the feedback from the District Magistrates regarding the required number of kits and certified operators to complete the BME in time, he said some of the DMs have responded while others have written to the state Home department.