Software, norms delay UID Phase 2

New stringent norms have slowed down enrolment for the unique identification or Aadhaar number as some agencies have expressed inability to meet the conditions.

Updated on: May 21, 2012, 23:49:20 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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New stringent norms have slowed down enrolment for the unique identification or Aadhaar number as some agencies have expressed inability to meet the conditions.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) was supposed to re-start enrolment to record biometric details of around 400 million Indians in 18 states from April, after enrolling around 200 million by February 2012.

“Only a few enrolment agencies have started work in some states,” admitted a senior UIDAI official, who was not willing to be quoted.

There are two major reasons for this slow take-off of the second phase of enrolment.

First is introduction of a new software to register enrolments with new fields for agencies to improve “quality of demographic data”. “All documents, including residence proof, have been made mandatory,” a UIDAI official said. Just not that, now the three biometrics — iris, fingerprints and face — will have to be taken in higher resolution for quicker and easier generation of Aadhaar numbers. The UIDAI has decided to carry out 100% manual check of all biometric exceptions — a person whose biometrics cannot be captured — to prevent a repeat in the second phase. Second is unwillingness of many agencies to adhere to new norms at the old price of maximum R50 for each successful enrolment. This is because the UIDAI for the second phase has decided to impose a penalty of R150 for every error in enrolment and R500 for violation of its guidelines.

“We have also installed a fraud analytics module at Central Identity Data Repository (CIDR) to track fraud attempts,” the official said.

An official of an enrolment agency, who was not willing to be quoted, said the manpower cost will double because of new UIDAI norms. “It will be a loss-making proposition in areas with less population or turnout,” he added.

RS Sharma, director general of UIDAI, was, however, confident of overturning the tide in the next few days. “By first week of June, the enrolments will resume with full swing,” an official said. The UIDAI is also facing trouble in finding agencies after it decided to suspend operations of some companies for non-compliance in first phase.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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