Waiting for hours for Aadhar registration

KOCHI: Kaladharan V N, a retired BSNL employee, has been taking the road to LMCC High School, Chatyat, for the past four days to register his family’s name for the Unique Identification (UID) Card. He stands in the queue from morning but returns home disappointed after 5.30 pm every day. Even on Monday he headed to the school with great hopes of registering the names but in vain. Same is the case with hundreds of people standing in front of the LMCC school. All because of the lack of staff support from Keltron that has undertaken the project of enrolment of UID card registration.The registration of Aadhaar cards commenced at the LMCC High School from September 3 and the registration is for Ayappankav, division 68. But people from other divisions are also heading to the school. To accommodate or direct the crowd there is no proper management. The lack of awareness about the procedures of the Aadhaar is also creating confusion. Some people wait for long hours only to go back home to collect the necessary documents. “I had to go back to take my child’s document after waiting for hours,” said M D Chandrashekaran, who came for the registration for the third consecutive day. People now have to buy application forms from a Xerox shop which were distributed free of cost during the first three days after the project commenced. Now they have to pay Rs. 2 per form at the shop. People who are not aware of buying application forms are found waiting in queues for hours.Councillor Mini Dilip said, “People were informed about the procedures through the respective residential associations.” But many are not aware of the procedures. Moreover, no specifications were put up for the public anywhere. Another problem is the dearth of sufficient staff. There are five biometric machines and one supervisor for enrolling the date and time for the biometrics. Five machines are not enough for the large crowd. The printer is also not functioning. For a single person the biometric test takes about 15 to 20 minutes. “On an average we complete the biometrics of 150 people a day,” said Deepu I, supervisor for the Aadhaar registration. Now the verification and the enrolment token number are issued by a single person. which is time-consuming. “There should be more staff to verify the forms and if the verifier is from the locality, the procedures can be done fast,” said Anthony Puthur, a retired teacher. A five-member team is provided by Keltron in each division which is not enough. “Keltron should assign more staff or the job should be done in different centres simultaneously in a given area,” said Sophie, a resident of Chatyat.