THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With the scope of Aadhaar authentication widening, ranging from exam application forms to banking applications, the state government is planning to achieve cent percent Aadhaar generation within a year.
At present, 98.5% of the population has enrolled for the unique identity number and Kerala tops the list of states with sizeable population. But the lagging factor has been the low enrolment of children below the age of 5 years and those of bedridden.
Kerala State IT Mission, the nodal agency for Aadhaar enrolment and Aadhaar based services in the state, plans to improve enrolment ratio in this category from the present 70 per cent. “At present the enrolment of children in the age group of 0-3 years is low.
We are planning steps to improve the numbers.” said Renjith, project manager (Akshaya), KSITM. Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has started the enrolment of children below 5 years last year. As many as 2,654 Akshaya Centres undertake most of the Aadhaar enrolment works.
Child enrolment
Child enrolment is being undertaken with the assistance of anganwadis and district administration.
Children in the age group of 0-5 years, including newborn babies can enrol and avail of Aadhaar numbers. Applications are available at Akshaya centres, panchayats, municipalities, corporations, welfare board offices etc.
“We get a lot of enquiries on enrolment from families of bedridden, newborn etc. It takes less than 10 days to get the card. For the benefit of non resident Keralities we have expedited the procedure.” said Renjith.
Based on the application, volunteers from Akshaya centres would visit the house of the bed ridden and get them enrolled. To get the newborn enrolled, KSITM plans to introduce Aadhaar registration through hospitals.