UID rollout caught in tech glitch

The Unique Identification (UID) is supposed to provide technological solutions, to improve governance, but the same technology had slowed down its rollout. Of the 17 crore people enrolled, the UID or Aadhaar letters have been dispatched to just three crore.

Updated on: Jan 24, 2012, 02:08:00 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Unique Identification (UID) is supposed to provide technological solutions, to improve governance, but the same technology had slowed down its rollout. Of the 17 crore people enrolled, the UID or Aadhaar letters have been dispatched to just three crore.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) had procured a two mbps leased line to transfer Aadhaar data to the postal department. The lease line has the capability to download data for printing just two lakh Aadhaar letters as against the required 10 lakh to ensure that one gets his or her UID within three months.

“We have to deliver an Aadhaar letter in 17 working days. Our data shows over 65% of the letters were delivered within seven days,” a senior official of the postal department said to indicate that delay was on part of UIDAI, not them.

The UIDAI was supposed to take a month for generation of an Aadhaar number after enrollment but the average period taken had been two to three months. The authority’s technology centre in Bangalore was not able to cope with the sudden increase in enrollments in later part of 2011.

Not just UIDAI, the postal department has also been technologically handicapped. Of the three crore Aadhaar dispatched, the department has clue to about 60 lakh of them, which are in transit. “Their status has not been updated as many post offices are not computerised,” the official said.

Human error was just 1.5 lakh or 0.4% of Aadhaar letters dispatched being returned to UIDAI as their was no claimant on account of wrong address.

Many such as Ashok G Waghmare have not received Aadhaar number even after 10 months after enrollment. Vivek Sharma, a government official, is surprised, as his wife has received an Aadhaar number but he and his two daughters haven’t.

PC dismisses reports of rift over Aadhar

Home minister P Chidambaram on Monday played down reports of a rift between the home ministry and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIADI) led by technocrat Nandan Nilekani. “There is no clash between Aadhar and the Smart Card issued by the home ministry,” he said launching the distribution of smart cards for coastal villages in Tamil Nadu at Pattipulam village, about 80 km from Chennai.

“We are at examining how best to include the Aadhar number into the Smart Card,” he added.

Of the 17 crore people enrolled, unique identification or Aadhar letters have been dispatched to three crore people. “We have to deliver an Aadhar letter in 17 working days. Our data shows over 65% of the letters were delivered within seven days,” a senior postal department official said in Delhi to indicate that the delay was on the part of the UIDAI. It was supposed to take a month to generate an Aadhar number after enrollment but the average period taken has been two to three months.

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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