Assam government clears decks to begin the process after UIDAI stalled it the last time citing new rules
By Our Staff Reporter
Guwahati, Jan 2: New Year has perhaps heralded in a new dawn for the people of Assam vis-à-vis residency and identity proof. For, barely a day after publication of the first part draft of tiol Register of Citizens (NRC) on New Year’s Day, decks are now being readied in Assam to begin the enrolment process for the unique 12-digit Aadhaar number for the people.
Work on rolling out the Aadhaar enrolment process will commence simultaneously alongside the ongoing work on bringing out the second and fil draft of NRC in the State.
Stalled at the last moment by Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI) citing Central government’s new rules following a Supreme Court directive over privacy issues, Dispur is now once again working out the modalities for beginning the enrolment process as per UIDAI’s revised guidelines. Post offices and public sector banks like State Bank of India (SBI) too are to begin enrolment for Aadhaar by this month.
And as UIDAI, the nodal agency issuing Aadhaar, had asked the State government not to engage private parties and instead involve only government employees, including Deputy Commissioners (DCs), Dispur has taken a decision in principle to desigte DCs as registrars for the enrolment process.
About 1,400 centres have already been identified for the project and all of these will be located in government institutions like in the campuses of offices of Deputy Commissioners, Sub-divisiol Officers, Circle Officers, Block Development Officers, municipality offices, etc.
Altogether 164 post offices in the State have been identified for beginning Aadhaar enrolment, while SBI will roll out the process initially in 48 of its branches.
The State government is hoping that if at least 40 people are enrolled in at least 1,200 centres per day, 48,000 people will be enrolled daily.
As kits for obtaining fingerprints and eye scanning may not be available in sufficient numbers nor trained manpower, the State government has been given the option of hiring such equipment from private parties and engage trained individuals for the purpose.
However, all documents will have to be verified only by government employees, the UIDAI has instructed.
The State government is now awaiting the nod of the Central nodal agency to float request for bid (RFB) to hire trained personnel and necessary equipment.
Aadhaar is not a proof of citizenship and as per rule, any individual residing in a particular place for a minimum of 183 days is entitled for enrolment.
While everyone, including infants, can enrol for the unique 12-digit number, children in the age group 0-5 years and those above 80 years have been exempted from providing biometric data. Children in the 0-5 years age group will be linked via their guardians and the government is estimating that at least 40 lakh of them will be enrolled.
As already reported by The Sentinel on 19th December last year, after all the planning and drawing up of strategies, the entire initiative for Aadhaar enrolment had come a cropper as UIDAI cited the Centre’s decision to involve only government machinery — not private parties — in order to secure data. All private agencies empanelled with UIDAI too were de-listed by 31st December.
Earlier, Dispur made General Administration Department (GAD) the State Registrar, besides constituting a committee with the Chief Secretary as Chairman to oversee the entire process.
All necessary measures were put in place to kick-start the process smoothly, including necessary administrative mechanism. The GAD had even floated request for bid (RFB) in this regard for hiring private agencies empanelled with UIDAI.
The State was also divided into 10 zones for the purpose and altogether 7,986 enrolment centres were proposed to be set up for the purpose, of which 5,985 would have been permanent centres, while the remaining were proposed to be mobile centres for covering remote and difficult-to-access areas of the State. Further, the GAD had issued instructions to Deputy Commissioners (DCs) and Sub-divisiol Officers (Civil) to identify buildings and locations where enrolment centres could be set up.
In fact, there were indications that the exercise would take off by 2017 December-end or January 2018.
However, after all these arrangements, the entire process came to a grinding halt following UIDAI red-flagging it. UIDAI later issued other instructions to the GAD for the purpose of enrolment, including that all DCs be made enrolment agents, scrutiny of documents be made only by government employees and that enrolment centres be set up only in government offices and establishments. Thankfully, the process is now set to re-start to the relief of the people.