As of February 15, 2018, the Government has issued over 117 crore
Aadhaar cards with a countrywide coverage of over 89 per cent. In some of the
States and Union Territories, such as Delhi, Goa, Chandigarh, Punjab and
Kerala, the registration rate is over 100 per cent. The worst in terms of
performances are the North-Eastern states of Assam, Meghalaya and Nagaland.
Depending on which side of the fence–pro-privacy or anti-Aadhaar–you are on, it
can be deemed to be a huge success or monumental malaise. But if there is one
failure that was unanticipated, not-thought-through, it was in the area of
governance, management, and continuation. The nodal agency, Unique
Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), should have known that the real
problem is invariably post-issuance management. At any given point in time,
10-20 per cent of the card holders will require changes–change of names due to
marriage, new cards due to births, and change of address in an ever-migrating
ecosystem. The authority seems totally unprepared to deal with such changes in
20-25 million Aadhaars on an annual basis. The number of branch offices for
changes are limited even in Delhi, the nation’s capital. Queues are common;
people line up at 5 a.m. reminding one the old ‘Socialist’ days of the 1970s.
Government servants at UIDAI branches are ‘lazy’ or ‘uninterested’ and citizens
have to make frequent visits. The issue has more critical after the Government
has insisted on linking Aadhaar with almost everything– PAN, bank account,
mobile number, subsidies, etc.
No comments:
Post a Comment