“I came to this Aadhaar registration centre at 4 a.m. today for the third consecutive day thinking that I would be among 10 early birds. But to my surprise I was given token number 19 and the advance token numbers had been issued to the touts,” complained Acchaiah to an official of the Mangaluru City Corporation on Friday.
The official was made to rush to the centre on the ground floor of the corporation building at Lalbagh at about 11 a.m. by his superior after there was a commotion and heated arguments between the sole employee at the centre and people who have been waiting to get themselves registered to get Aadhaar cards.
Many others complained that some security guards took tokens in advance and “sold them” for Rs. 500 per token. There was a nexus between employees, touts and security guards, due to which, though many people stood in queue from early morning, they got last tokens and many returned without tokens.
People complained that though they called up the number 7676686732 displayed at the centre to complain about it, the person did not receive the calls. The display at the centre mentioned that 120 coupons should be issued a day. But only 40 tokens were issued on Friday, forcing many to return.
The lone employee at the centre told the official that of the three appointed employees, one left the job and the other one was on leave on Friday. He had to issue the coupons and engage in the registration process alone. Asked whether touts were issued with coupons in advance, the employee replied that whoever stood in the queue were issued coupons on a first-come-first-served basis.
To a question by The Hindu , Deputy Commissioner A.B. Ibrahim replied saying why people should visit this particular centre only, when there were many others in the city.
