Chennai: While the Central government is mandating the possession of Aadhaar cards, there seems to be a major difficulty in obtaining one. Statistics from the Unique Identification Authority of India states that the Chennai district with 200 divisions has only 62 Aadhaar card enrolment centres. Lack of adequate instruments and functioning without licenses are a few issues delaying the Aadhaar card availing procedure.
Aadhaar cards can be obtained through three offices: Tamil Nadu Arasu cable TV Corporation (TACTV), Common Services Centres (CSC) and Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu Limited (Elcot). While the public is aware of the initial two schemes, there seems to be no knowledge of the Elcot offices, located in many places including Nandanam, Velachery and Chennai collector’s office.
However, things are not quite smooth with TACTV and CSCs. It is a known scenario that citizens who step into the Arasu cable TV offices are asked to come after a month for the enrolment of Aadhaar cards, due to the huge waiting list. A. Swathi, who went to a TACTV office at Egmore said, “They were not even bothered to take down the details. I was asked to come after a month, to finish the formalities.”
Officials from the TACTV said that they provide around 900 Aadhaar enrolments in a month and that there is a huge waiting list in many prime centres.
Major lapses could be witnessed with the functioning of CSCs in the same address, without adequate instruments. To cite a few examples, three centres are functioning in the Kalaivanar Street of MGR Nagar, with just one instrument. “Similarly, two centres in Ashok Nagar are functioning without enough instruments. In few places, there is not even one centre. It is a huge malpractice, as according to CSC rules, an agent should not hold more than one ID and the centres should be in different localities,” said RTI activist V Gopalakrishnan.
Deccan Chronicle had earlier reported on the malpractice, during which the officials of CSC assured to carry out an inspection at the earliest.
Two names linked with same no.
In one of the examples that explains the irregularities in TNEPDS, a single Aadhaar number has been given to two persons. . N Vijaya Kumar, who went to the ration card office to feed his Aaadhar card to obtain smart card, was shocked to see a different person’s name in his Aadhaar number.
“My Aadhaar card number is 844414486447. When officials checked the same number in the family address, it showed a different name called Joseph. However, when checked individually, it showed right. How can I use my smart card as an identity, if it is not genuine,” asked Vijaya Kumar.
The same has happened to Vijaya Kumar’s wife Aadhaar number as her number is given to another person with the name – Swaminathan Kathivadi Ramanathan.
In yet another example, the Aadhaar number 822020485766 shows two names – R. Saravanan and Bhoovinathan Ganesh.
“It could be due to the errors in programming. The people concerned can raise a complaint to toll free number – 1967,” said a TNEPDS official. However, there are no provisions to correct online, he added.
