MYSURU: Fourteen years after the launch of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), tribals living in remote areas of the backward Chamarajanagar district have received their Aadhaar cards. The long wait has come to an end as the district administration has reached their doorstep to issue Aadhaar cards that have become mandatory to avail Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s favourite guarantee schemes or to get free PDS or health cover.
Thanks to Deputy Commissioner Shilpanag for holding a time-bound drive to see that every child or person in Chamarajanagar district gets an Aadhaar card. Though there are 158 tribal colonies with more than 32,000 population, many elderly people from remote villages used to reach the district office complex requesting for an Aadhaar card.
This caught the eyeballs of DC Shilpanag who managed to get exclusive Aadhaar kits and assigned officials to visit all the haadis, conduct camps and issue the cards at their doorsteps. The drive that launched on August 30, 2023, has covered 61 tribal haadis and has issued 2,874 Aadhaar cards, including 520 new cards, besides 2,454 updation cards.
A team of officials, including health navigators, Tribal Welfare, Food and Civil Supplies and Health staff, are also going door-to-door to see whether they have ration cards, health cards, caste certificates and other benefits from the departments.
“The data is compiled to create a database so that anyone reaching out to the hospital will be able to produce their Aadhaar card, caste certificate and ration card to get the benefits. To the surprise of many, more than 1,500 tribals are yet to get their Aadhaar cards as they could not go to the district centre and many don’t have either scheduled tribe caste certificates,” sources said.
“Though the tribal community is getting nutritional food, they are yet to get benefits under various state government programmes. A majority of them are not aware of the programmes. How can we get benefits when we don’t have an Aadhaar card that has to be linked to the bank account to get everything,” said Bommaiah, a tribal.