Aadhaar to be new aadhaar in Assam

By Our Staff Reporter

Guwahati, Aug 18: The ball has been filly set rolling for issuing the much-awaited Unique Identification (UID) cards – more commonly referred to as Aadhaar cards – to the residents of the State. 

Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique-identity number issued to all Indian residents. 

As already reported by The Sentinel on 21st July 2017, a committee christened as the State Aadhaar Implementation Committee and headed by the State’s Chief Secretary as its Chairperson has been constituted for the purpose, with heads of key government departments like Fince, Home & Political, Panchayat & Rural Development (P&RD), Revenue & Disaster Magement, etc, as its members. The committee has already held three crucial meetings so far. 

In the third meeting held recently, the committee decided to divide the State into 10 zones for effective rolling out of the Aadhaar cards. The meeting also decided to open about 7,500 permanent enrolment centres and 2,500 mobile enrolment centres for the purpose. A roadmap has been prepared in this regard.

The State Aadhaar Implementation Committee has also approved a draft of the request for quotation (RFQ) that will be floated for inviting bids from agencies for carrying out the project. The RFQ will be shared with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIAI), the agency entrusted to implement the project across the country, to seek its views, besides other State government departments. After getting the views from all these government departments and agencies, the RFQ will be floated.

Further, only agencies already enrolled with the UIAI will be eligible to bid for the process in Assam. And as these agencies are already technically qualified, only fincial bid will be sought from them by the committee. 

The committee is confident of beginning the entire exercise of enrolling across the State by the beginning of 2018. 

The Aadhaar cards will be sent to individuals by post free of cost. As such, address proof will be must for enrolment. Other criteria for enrolment will be publicised later, sources said, adding that massive public awareness campaigns will be carried out across the State prior to the beginning of the exercise. 

The entire cost of executing the UID in Assam will be borne by the UIAI, as is being done in other parts of the country. 

Meanwhile, as already reported by The Sentinel, the General Administration Department (GAD) has been appointed as the nodal agency or registrar to oversee the roll-out of the Aadhaar cards by the Sarbanda Sonowal government. The GAD has started communicating with the UIAI on the matter. 

The government hopes to enrol at least 50% of the State’s population by April 2018 for the Aadhaar cards, sources said. 

The latest move of Dispur assumes significance since the UID roll-out process was stalled in the State after several organisations raised their objections to it, citing that the cards will become another document for illegal immigrants to prove their citizenship. The organisations demanded that the process be started only after the update of the tiol Register of Citizens (NRC), which is being done under the Supreme Court’s supervision, is complete. 

However, the current dispensation at Dispur studied the matter in depth and found that the objections were not based on facts. The sources referred to Clause 9 of the notification for UID issued by the Centre to justify the State Government’s decision. Clause 9 states: “The Aadhaar number of the authentication thereof shall not, by itself, confer any right of or the proof of citizenship or domicile in respect of an Aadhaar number holder.”

Currently, only 7% of the State’s population has been covered under the UID, which is the lowest in the country. This has led to deprivation of a large chunk of the State’s population from a number of benefits being offered under various government schemes, including new LPG connection, scholarships, MGNREGA, etc. 

“Under such circumstances, the State Government has decided to go ahead with rolling out of Aadhaar cards in Assam. The people of the State should not be deprived from benefits being provided by the Centre in a number of schemes,” the sources added.

It may be recalled that the Tarun Gogoi government had initially entrusted the P&RD Department with the task of rolling out Aadhaar cards in the State, before making the Home & Political Department responsible for it.