This certificate came from none other than UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani, who was in Ranchi today to chair a review meeting of the project whose eastern region headquarters have been set up here.
“We reviewed our work in Jharkhand, Bihar and Bengal during this meeting. We are very happy with the progress in the making of Aadhaar numbers in Jharkhand,” said one of the celebrated co-founders of IT bellweather Infosys Technologies.
Then came the clincher. “However, in Bihar and Bengal, the work of enrolling people for the unique numbers and issuing them these numbers is yet to pick up speed,” Nilekani added.
He confirmed that so far, around 20 lakh people of Jharkhand had been enrolled for UID cards. Of this, around 6.5 lakh had already received their Aadhaar numbers.
In the urban areas, work was likely to be completed by March 2012.
So far, in West Bengal 46,613 UID numbers have been issued, while in Bihar it was 17,043.
Unique Identification Authority of India’s (UIDAI) eastern regional office in Ranchi monitors the work in all three states and hence officers involved in the project in Bihar and Bengal were also present at today’s meeting.
Several aspects of the project, including various systemic strengths and weaknesses encountered by enrolment agencies as well as government officials, were discussed threadbare.
At the national level, as many as 90 lakh people have already been issued Aadhaar numbers, while another 2 crore people have been enrolled. Nilekani, said the UIDAI’s aim was to issue 60 crore Aadhaar numbers by 2014 across the country.
“By October this year, we aim to enrol 10 lakh people across the country for Aadhaar in a day. In the coming days, the tempo of enrolling persons for Aadhaar will increase,” he added.
Nilekani, who arrived here from Delhi around 7.30am, was accompanied by UIDAI director-general R.S. Sharma — a Jharkhand cadre IAS officer who played a key role in introducing IT-enabled e-governance measures in rural belts of the state — and deputy director-general M. Dalwai.
Earlier, Nilekani met chief minister Arjun Munda for over an hour at his Kanke Road residence and discussed various uses of Aadhaar numbers including their linkage to several government schemes like MGNREGS, old-age pension, scholarships and public distribution system to make implementation entirely transparent.
Munda had also asked several senior officials of various state government departments, including rural development, urban development and food and civil supplies, to attended the meeting. “Beginning with MGNREGS, use of Aadhaar numbers will be gradually extended to other departments,” he said.
“Once this number gets used in schemes, the scope of malpractice and duplicity will be controlled. Besides, it will help the government in strengthening internal security,” Munda added.
Nilekani, who was on his second visit to the state, maintained that the UIDAI’s progress was satisfactory in Jharkhand and that every individual in the state would receive his or her Aadhar number by March 2013.
“The warm response being given to us everywhere is rather enthusing. Everyday, 200-300 people turn up at our camps for registration. In the next three to four months, we will be able to enrol over 10 lakh new persons,” he added.
So far, 46,613 UID numbers have been issued in Bengal, and only 17,043 in Bihar. According to sources in the UIDAI, state governments of both Bihar and Bengal were yet to get into the act of enrolling people for UID numbers.
The numbers achieved so far were courtesy State Bank of India and Life Insurance Corporation of India, two agencies working as national registrars for the project in Bihar and Bengal respectively.
While, the former Left Front government in Bengal did not show much interest, in Bihar, the Nitish Kumar government had already launched a similar initiative of issuing “e-Shakti” cards before the UID project was rolled out.
By the time UID was launched there, around 50,000 e-Shakti cards had already been issued by a private firm entrusted with the job. “But the problem has been sorted out now. The company entrusted with creating e-Shakti cards will be working in tandem with the firms selected by UIADI to issue Aadhar numbers in the entire state,” an official added.
A Bihar government source claimed that around 60,000 people had been enrolled for UID numbers so far.
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Quelle/Source: The Calcutta Telegraph, 17.06.2011
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