District sees 97% enrol for Aadhar card
Nikhil Deshmukh | TNN |
Apr 10, 2016, 09.05 AM IST
Kolhapur: The district has recorded 97.18% registration for the Aadhaar card with 37.66 lakh of the total population of 38.76 lakh enrolled.
District collector Amit Saini said, "Most of the people in the district have enrolled for the Aadhaar card. As per the 2011 census, there are 38,76,001 people in the district. Of this number, 37,66,565 people have enrolled while 36,79,508 people have received the card. Most people received the document through the Indian postal system while others obtained it from the official website."
Around 1,09,436 people in the district have not yet enrolled for the Aadhaar card. The projected population of Kolhapur district for April, 2016, is 42,61,416. Calculating enrolment for this figure will mean that 88.39% of the population has an Aadhaar card.
Saini said that once a child is more than six years old, he or she becomes a part of the census. "Every year, thousands of children become part of the population after they turn six. Very few of them enrol for an Aadhaar card at such a low age. Most of the applications for Aadhaar cards are from employed and undergraduate people."
Officials also pointed out that zero to six age group is vulnerable hence census data is not very reliable about the numbers in this category.
Sources in the district collectorate have said that Aadhaar number is useful for so that the government can transfer subsidies for its schemes directly to the bank accounts of the final beneficiaries.Meanwhile, the Union government's direct benefit transfer scheme has been operational in the state for more than three years, but has still not managed 100% implementation. Under this scheme, the Centre aims to transfer the gas subsidy to the final customers directly instead of the gas agencies. To facilitate this initiative, the government has asked the people to obtain an Aadhaar card which would offer a unique number. This number is further linked with the bank accounts of the customer and also registered with the cooking gas agency. This helps the government coordinate and credit the subsidy directly to the customer eliminating any middlemen.