Aadhaar drive loses its pace
Rohith B R, TNN | Mar 15, 2014, 01.42AM IST
BANGALORE: The Aadhaar enrolment drive in Bangalore and across the state seems to have lost its steam with the numbers declining sharply.
In December 2013, Bangalore witnessed over 4.5 lakh registrations and in January it came down to 3.12 lakh and then to 84,000 in February. In March, the enrolment (as on date) has been restricted to 23,500. The case of Karnataka as a whole is no different as enrolment has dropped from 28 lakh in December 2013 to 11 lakh in February 2014.
Aadhaar managers say the confusion over transfer of cooking gas subsidy to Aadhaar-linked bank accounts was the reason behind registrations slowing down in the past few months. The sharp decline began in January 2014 after the Centre suspended Aadhaar-based gas subsidy transfers until a committee constituted to analyze the scheme submits its report.
UIDAI officials in Bangalore said they have completed 75 per cent enrolment in the city and are doing well in districts like Belgaum, Mysore, Tumkur. "However, in many districts like Bangalore Rural, Ramanagaram, Kodagu, Chikkaballapur, Gadag, Yadgir, Chamarajnagar and Raichur, the enrolment percentage is very less," he added.
No special drives: Yahaya Magdum, manager (information, education, communication), Bangalore Regional Office, UIDAI, said they are not in a position to launch a fresh drive or awareness programme to step up enrolment. "We are a government agency and have to adhere to the model code of conduct in place for the Lok Sabha elections. We have to wait for two more months before we can do something to improve enrolment," he added.
An officer from UIDAI quoted another reason for not going ahead with any awareness programme: Their chairman's (Nandan Nilekani) recent resignation from the post. "We have received instructions not to launch any Aadhaar drive as it may influence voters in some way or the other," he added.