HYDERABAD: Making the smallest of changes in your Aadhaar card can prove to be a day-long affair. The rush at a few enrolment centres in the city, where this can be done, can be mind-boggling.
People begin trickling into them from as early as 5 am.
In government-run MeeSeva centres in the city, around 40 of them, the situation is no better. Every day, around 40 tokens are issued to applicants.
They got over in a flash. But, why is there such a sudden rush?
This rush can be attributed to the fact that the number of Aadhaar enrollment centres in the State fell sharply from nearly 9,000 odd last year to roughly 500 this year.
This was because the UIDAI issued orders in 2017 that one can not run an enrolment centre on private premises and that it must be done from a government building, bank or post office.
Owing to this new rule, several MeeSeva centres, which had taken permits and bought kits for running Aadhar enrolment centres, had to end Aadhaar-related work.
In GHMC, from 700 odd MeeSeva centres, only 40-odd private players are left today.
The rule had said private operators cannot function on private premises, and if they wish to continue doing so they would have to move to a government office.
However, most private MeeSeva operators have not been able to find a place in government offices yet.
“They wanted private MeeSeva operators who run their centres to give ‘willingness letters’. Those who submitted these letters have not been shown a single space across the city where they can run their centre.
Unless district officials give us a proper space to work from, where our equipment will not be damaged, how can we go ahead?” asks Mohammed Abdul Moheed, general secretary, Telangana MeeSeva Federation.
While the new rules allow Aadhar enrolment centres to be run out of post offices and banks, most such institutions have not shown much interest in them.
Meanwhile, E-seva officials note that they have informed collectors about the process of notifying spaces in government offices.
Fast facts
There are 40 E-Seva centres in GHMC jurisdiction, that are operated by the govt. People can enrol for Aadhaar and make changes in it here. Space for around 40 more has been sanctioned by 3 district collectors in Hyderabad. There are around 500 such centres in the State.