Vijayawada: Many voters unaware of Aadhaar linkage

Vijayawada: In order to weed out duplicate, ineligible and illegal voter ID cards in Vijayawada city, home to 7.5 lath voters, the Election Commission of India has initiated a programme linking the Aadhaar number with the present Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC).

 

The Vijayawada Municipal Corporation has at present taken charge of getting all voters to enrol and linking the Aadhaar number with voter ID. As per records and available data from the corporation, it is learnt that only 60 percent of the voters from three constituencies West, East and Central have enrolled. 

 

The remaining 40 percent are still reluctant even after many intimations and awareness programmes. H. Sree Rama Chandra Murthy, Deputy Tehsildar, explained that most people living in slums and hillocks are unaware about the matter and senior citizens have not linked as some of them do not even have Aadhaar cards.

 

"The corporation also initiated a home to home survey to enrol them right at the door steps. So far now, only 60 percent of voters have enrolled,"  Mr Murthy informed.

 

The whole point behind the exercise is to weed out duplicate voter ID cards and to make available all details of the person in just one click. But a large number of citizens still out of the linking drive mean that the programme needs more vigorous attention. The appointed surveyors allege that most of the houses they visited were either locked or the residents were already shifted to another locality.VMC officials are blaming disinterested residents for not being able to complete linking their Aadhaar number.

 

"Nearly 7.7 lakh voter IDs have been issued and 40 percent of residents have to link their Aadhaar number. However, approximately 8000 voter IDs have been found to be duplicate and other 8000  names have been found to be of dead people. All those data was deleted from the list," said Assistant Commissioner General Mr Nagaraju, when contacted.