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Pune centres crammed even as government extends deadline for Aadhar linking
While the government, in the past week, extended the deadline for mandatory linking of the Aadhaar number with various schemes and services including bank accounts
While the government, in the past week, extended the deadline for mandatory linking of the Aadhaar number with various schemes and services including bank accounts and phone numbers, till March 31, 2018, there is still panic among people who are now rushing to Aadhaar centres for registration.
Centre scrammed full due to rushMany Aadhaar centres overrun, inactive - Box (Pune Metro pg 2; Date: Dec 11, 2017) - Embed code inline script.
“I am too tired and I don’t think I can do this anymore,” said Manisha Jagwani, a nine-month pregnant lady while waiting for her husband outside a Maha-online Limited Seva Kendra in Aundh. A resident of Camp, Manisha and her husband Sahil have been making trips to various Aadhaar enrolment centres across the city.
In the past two months, Jagwani has visited the Dhole Patil ward office, Chandan Nagar ward office as well as the general post office (GPO) and all of them said that he cannot get a new registration done for an Aadhaar card and that only changes can be made to the registered card. “I have mine and but my wife’s was rejected for some reason in January and when we checked online, we were told to re-register for the process,” said Sahil.
Admitting that there is a rush for Aadhaar registration and that most centres are not functioning, the administration said that it is going to increase the number of machines across the city due to a rise in demand for the same.
“We have 196 Aadhaar machines currently working in Pune district with 84 machines in Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) area and 49 active centres in Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) area. In the next few days, we are going to bring in 50 more units,” said tehsldar Vikas Bhalerao.
The earlier deadline for linking Aadhaar with various schemes was December 31, 2017. However, the finance ministry said that many taxpayers have not completed the linking process with their Permanent Account Number (PAN). “To facilitate the process of linking, it has been decided to extend the deadline till March 31, 2018,” the finance ministry had stated.
The government has mandated the linking of Aadhaar with bank accounts, PAN, mobile numbers and other services. With messages from banks and mobile companies doing rounds about suspension of mobile numbers and bank accounts, panicked people have now sought to register their for an Aadhaar number as soon as possible.
There are many like Sahil who feel that the Aadhaar centres are not enough. Serpentine queues begin as early as 6 am for Warje Aadhar Kendra, which opens at 9 am. People from all walks of life make haste to be the first in the queue to get a token, which means that they will get to register for the biometric process in the day.
“In October, when a major Aadhaar drive was launched, it was very haphazard and there was no proper system in place,” said Rahul Agarwal, who has been having a tough time getting his one-year-old daughter registered for an Aadhaar card. “We visited the Mundhwa centre and there were no forms for enrolment. Even basic facilities like clean toilets or drinking water was not in place. Along with us, there were many other parents with toddlers and senior citizens who were waiting for long in the queue and had to go home dejected. We were told that new registrations will not be possible as the server was down,” said Agarwal.
“The process is very simple but a machine can take the load of only 20 to 25 citizens a day,” said Vikas Bhalerao, teshildar and assistant nodal officer of Aadhaar Seva.
But it has not been easy for many of the citizens and operators who are running the centre. Shalan Bhagat is struggling to manage the number of people coming to the centre. “We have only one machine and for the past 15 days, the biometric has not been working properly. We had no option, but to turn every one away,” said Bhagat.
Mukesh Prajapati, a resident of NIBM, had a different problem. He had gone to the collector’s office for the second time now. “I registered four years ago for the Aadhaar card and now, when we checked online for linking it, it said that it is a duplicate. There is no clarification on how things work and the citizens are forced to go to various centres until they get a response,” he said.
Captain Mayank Nerula and his mother live in Lonavla. His problem is that his mother is immobile as she is old and suffering from hyper thyroid. “Given her medical condition, I wanted to place a request to see if I can get her at a later time during the day. Usually, people have to come as early as 6 am to line up for a token, so I have been suggested to get a token for her and bring her back later, which sounds feasible,” he said. Nerula also thought of opting for the home services that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) offers at a price, but he was told that they don’t have services to Lonavla.
