Thanks to Aadhaar faux pas, every fifth person in this village is born on Jan 1

ALLAHABAD: LUCKNOW: Imagine a situation where not only a family but every fifth person of a village of 10,000 people share the same date of birth (DoB). What's more, in some cases, an entire family has got the same DoB. A considerable chunk of the population in the village of Kanjasa on the banks of Yamuna in Allahabad’s Jasra block have January 1 as their birth date though the years vary.

At least their Aadhaar cards say so. Strange as it may sound, it speaks volumes about how mindlessly the column seeking DoB for Aadhaar has been filled up by the agency concerned. Now, the villagers are at a loss and feel cheated on finding their DoBs wrong in the Aadhaar card which they got after a long wait.

The faux pas emerged when teachers of a government school in the village started registering the Aadhaar number of students as per the directives of the State government to ensure that the benefit of welfare schemes reach them.

“As we started registering the Aadhaar card number of the students, we found that a large number of students had a common date of birth (January 1) though the years were different,” said Savita, a teacher in the primary school.

She added that initially it was seen as sheer coincidence but when the number started going up, the massive blunder was exposed. In many cases, the students were found to be much older than their age mentioned in the Aadhaar card, she added.

One of the elders of Kanjasa, Ram Kripal, was miffed with the situation. He said: “We have been awaiting the Aadhaar card for long. When it came, it had this blunder. Now, we have to wait to receive the cards with correction.”

However, village head Ram Dulari said: “We have found that wrong date of birth has been entered in the Aadhaar card of the villagers. The error will be rectified and we will get new cards soon.” According to Jasra block development officer Neeraj Dubey, the error could be due to the software used to create the card, as it had a feature to take January 1 as the date of birth by default of those people who were not aware of their actual DoB. “But even those who had furnished their correct details have got it wrong in their cards.

This will be rectified,” he said. District administration officials said that first the agency which was entrusted with creating the Aadhaar card will be identified. “A probe has been ordered. Secondly, we will correct the wrong entries as there is an option for correction. The villagers will get new cards," said Daya Shankar Pandey, ADM (finance & revenue).