Sharad Kohli | TNN | May 3, 2017, 03.15 AM IST
GURUGRM: With the state government making Aadhaar mandatory for issuing of birth certificates, will Aadhaarocracy create another level of bureaucracy? And does the act of getting babies enrolled in the UIDAI involve a breach of ethics?
The Unique ID Authority of India may predate the Modi government, but the current dispensation has been over-eager to give it a big push. Haryana, however, is not the first state to obligate that mothers and fathers must register their newborns. To some, the thought of photographing newborns, or taking their fingerprints, to create an identity, is plain wrong. The doctors, though, don't believe so. They're more worried about the increased strain on an already overstretched profession.
Getting Aadhaar registry done at the time of birth is not at all a bad thing, according to Dr Ragini Agrawal, senior gynaecologist and medical director at the city's W Pratiksha Hospital. "If the government is making it mandatory for everybody to have an Aadhaar card, nothing like getting it made at the time of birth because it is the right time," she told TOI. But, she maintained, the duty of documenting and processing the IDs should fall on the government. "It should not be the responsibility of the doctors, since already doctors have a lot of paperwork to do. "When we send the birth details of the baby to the registrar's office, at that time, before issuing, they should hold a camp in the hospital, say once a month, so all the delivered babies can get registered at that time by government officials, who will then issue the birth certificate, and, alongside, the Aadhaar card. "Fingerprints are not possible unless they have the ink, ink which is not toxic for the baby," Dr Agrawal added.
Dr Lata Nagpal, of Nagpal Nursing Home, doesn't feel there's anything improper about the policy. "I don't think so - what's unethical in it?" she queried. But this is an onus doctors could do without. "It's a little difficult because to fill everything online becomes a little tedious. For, as soon as the baby is born, the parents have to keep the name, then they have to fill the name and send it. That part is a little difficult. So it's more of a burden on the doctors."
Dr Ritu Jain, of Vardhman Medicare Centre, agrees. "As such, it is a good move, but putting it all on the hospital becomes problematic, because this is in no way related to clinical work." There are other challenges, as Dr Jain points out. "The thing is that so many times the parents do not have their Aadhaar card, and the babies' fingerprints keep changing with the passage of time. So even if you link the babies' Aadhaar card with the parents' cards, things will change after one year, and after five years."