Entry errors forcing many Aadhaar applicants to re-enrol

Lakhs of people across the country are being asked to re-enrol for Aadhaar following data errors and mismatch of their biometrics. Following complaints from some Bangaloreans that they have been asked to re-enrol for Aadhaar, Deccan Herald spoke to Ashok M R Dalwai, Deputy Director General, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). He confirmed that the number of people being asked to re-enrol could exceed lakhs. Dalwai said that one would be asked to re-enrol for Aadhaar, if the collected data failed in the quality check for validations. "Each person is given four chances. We do this to try our best to ensure that there are no issues later,” he said. Checking for glitches on the spot would be impossible. "We are asking for re-enrolment to help people and also ensure that Aadhaar is unique in the true sense,” he said. According to sources in the UIDAI, there have been cases where the fingerprints have been mismatched. During the final verification, officials found that in several cases, many applications had identical fingerprints. The sources attributed the errors to operators. Some Bangaloreans who spoke to Deccan Herald said they were asked to re-apply for Aadhaar, months after they had enrolled. Many others know nothing about the status of their cards despite having the enrolment numbers. Sujit Bhattacharya, a resident of Narayanapura, was under the impression that he would get his Aadhaar card in 90 days. "Little did I know that the card could not be generated due to data processing problem,” Bhattacharya said. He learnt about it through the UIDAI website. Bhattacharya said that it was after 70 days that he read a status report online that he had to re-enrol himself to get Aadhaar card. The same thing happened twice. It was in May 2013 that he applied for the card. He said that he requested for the same in November 2013 and faced a similar problem again. The plight of Papia, another resident of the City, is no different. Even after the 90-day ideal deadline for the applicant to get the card passed, "under process” was the response she got. Papia had applied for the card in May last year.   Deccan Herald