More than 8.90 lakh people in the city have enrolled for Aadhaar so far, according to official sources.
The Census department is now targeting to cover 70 to 75 per cent of the 41 lakh people (five years and above) in Chennai, excluding the newly-added areas, by September end, according to Joint Director of Directorate of Census Operations (Tamil Nadu) M R V Krishna Rao.
Rao told City Express that the deadline for the process of Aadhaar number generation and bio-metric data enrolment for the National Population Registry (NPR) in the city as well as the State was likely to be extended beyond September.
The added areas will not figure in the Chennai data of the Census Department and will come under the jurisdiction of Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts, since they have not been covered under the 2011 Census.
Rao said the enrolment process is on in seven zones of the city.
“Currently, the process of biometric data enrolment through iris detection and fingerprinting is being done in 13 wards in Tondiarpet, nine wards in Ayanavaram, seven wards in Anna Nagar, 17 wards in Nungambakkam and 17 wards in Kodambakkam,” he said.
Rao added that in Royapuram, 65 per cent of enrolment was over and the first phase had been completed. “We are expecting to start in Adyar by July 8. The process will start in four wards,” he added.
Across the State, the enrolment process has started in 32 districts. Six districts have been covered in the first and second phase. “In the remaining 26 districts, the first phase of enrolment is going on,” he adds.
Of the 6.74 crore population (five years and above) in the 32 districts, 3.48 crore had completed biometric data enrolment.
“As per June 28 figures, a total of 2.20 crore Aadhaar numbers have been generated in the State,” says Rao.
But the biggest challenge before the Census Department is the complaints from people about being left out from the whole process.
Rao defended the operators certified by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) stating that the people who were complaining might not have registered or would not have been present during the Census operation.
“They don’t have to worry. They still can apply by getting the form from the Corporation or Zonal Office free of cost and filling it. They will be covered in the second phase,” he added.
“During the second round, we will be focusing on two categories. In the first category there will be those who were not covered under National Population Registry. In the second category, we will focus on addition of new members of the family, which include daughter-in-law, son-in-law etc. It will also cater to the anomalies in biometric data enrolment like distortion in images,” he said. After two rounds, those who had not enrolled would have to approach the permanent NPR centres at the Corporation, Zonal Office, Collectorate and Taluk offices.
There is lack of awareness about the Aadhaar scheme in the city. Even the educated are unaware of the scheme and this has resulted in hardly one person visiting temporary centres for enrolment.
Rao said that the 41 lakh people in the city were being covered by 200 operators who have 200 kits. “In case there is massive awareness, then we don’t have adequate manpower to handle such a crowd. Not only that, it takes a minimum of 10 minutes and a maximum 20 minutes to register a person. If we get a massive crowd, it will result in chaos and the enrolment process will be delayed,” he says.
Even the operators have to ensure that they get adequate people per day. “We have fixed the salary of operators on the basis of how many biometric images they take. We are covering an average of 50 to 55 persons per day,” said Rao.