Nikhil Deshmukh, TNN | Jun 16, 2015, 12.50AM IST
KOLHAPUR: The Election Commission's ambitious project to link the Aadhaar card number of the people with the voter ID card has lukewarm response in the city, though the Commission has made a provision of online linking of both the numbers. The EC has stated that since the urban people are tech savvy, they can link their own voter ID number with Aadhaar card on the website and reduce the workload of the government agencies. But only 6% of the cards in the urban areas have been linked so far.
The linking would automatically avoid duplication of names in the lists as one Aadhaar card will get linked with only one voter ID.
The municipal corporation elections are just three months away but the citizens are not keen on linking the cards. The government agencies such as the district collectorate or the municipal corporation are also not taking enough efforts for spreading awareness about the issue.
Only 5.3% and 7.8% voters from Kolhapur North and Kolhapur South constituencies have linked their Aadhaar cards, whereas in remote constituencies like Chandgad and Radhanagari, the percentage of linking stands at 49.75% and 41.40 %, respectively.
District election officer Sangeeta Chowgule said, "The sad part is that urban people are disinterested in such activities. They have the resources like internet and smart phones but very few have participated in the EC drive on their own. On the other hand, the rural population is keen on getting these cards linked and most of them are already beneficiaries of some government scheme where Aadhaar card is linked. There are several urban people who use Aadhaar card as identity proof, but they are not beneficiaries of any government scheme. It could be one of the reasons behind them being disinterested in the linking activity."
There are 29,28,883 voters in the district of which only 72,170 voters have linked their aadhar and voter id numbers. In rural areas, the government revenue officials are also responsible for such works, where people are submitting their voter id and aadhar numbers for linking. Hence, the rural percentage is higher and it is going on. In urban areas, people have aadhar card but neither they are linking in on their own nor they are submitting to government officials for linking, she said.
The KMC elections will be held in October and the election commission has set a deadline of July-end to link all the voters with their Aadhaar card.
In urban area like the Kolhapur Municipal Corporation, the deputy commissioner is appointed for undertaking awareness drives. KMC deputy commissioner Ashvini Waghmole, who is in charge of the drive, said: "The urban people are disinterested in such works because they are not the beneficiaries of any government scheme. The beneficiaries from the city areas are sincere and keen on getting their numbers linked. We are working on some ideas for spreading awareness and prompting people to get their numbers linked. But it is not yet finalized."
Sources close to the KMC said that the corporators can be of great help, but there is one catch - once the Aadhaar and voter ID cards d are linked, the duplicate names will be removed automatically. There are several people living in city, who are from rural parts of the district and have their names in both the voters' lists. If their Aadhaar cards and voter ID numbers are linked, they will have to give up one of their voter ID. This is the main reason behind the lack of interest in linking of these numbers in the urban areas. So, the corporators also not very keen on such a drive where their potential voters may be removed from the list."
