Even as school managements heaved a sigh of relief after the government relaxed the rule that makes inclusion of Aadhaar card numbers in the SSC forms mandatory, authorities in the Education Department say the norm will be back very soon.
The Andhra Pradesh State Education Department, in a circular issued on November 26, said inclusion of Aadhaar number was mandatory for students writing their SSC exams in March 2016. The categorical warning handed out by the department setting December 15 as the deadline sent school managements and parents into a tizzy. It took a good number of furious parents and baffled school managements to deplore the move and remind the authorities concerned about the SC directive that Aadhaar card should be made mandatory only for those availing an LPG subsidy and the beneficiaries of the Public Distribution System, to retract the move.
Krishna District Educational Officer A. Subba Reddy says the respite given to schools to secure Aadhaar cards of students of all classes is only temporary. “Aadhaar is necessary to put in place a fool-proof system. We may have relaxed the norm for now, but in the days to come, the Department will insist on it,” he clarifies. The government move, meanwhile, has opened a Pandora’s box for school managements. Some of them accuse the Education Department officials of resorting to arm-twisting tactics. “We have been asked to collect Aadhaar information from all students. The officials say if we fail in the task, they would not allow our 10th class students to write their exams. This is proving to be cumbersome. I have been calling parents and asking them to bring their children’s Aadhaar card details but to no avail,” says headmistress of a primary wing of a prominent school in city.
“A large section of parents of our students are not educated and they take time to comprehend the urgency of the issue. Even if you apply under Tatkal, it takes a minimum of 10-15 days to generate the Aadhaar number. Then there is the problem of discrepancy in the spellings of the students’ names and other details in the birth certificates and the Aadhaar cards which need to be addressed afresh,” says P. Rupavathi, founder secretary and correspondent of Noble Kids’ English Medium High School at Maruthi Nagar. The DEO maintains that the department is going slow as nearly 50,000-60,000 of the 6 lakh-odd students in Krishna district do not have Aadhaar cards. “Schools must utilise the given time to do the needful,” he says.
Krishna District Educational Officer A. Subba Reddy says the respite given to schools to secure Aadhaar cards of students of all classes is only temporary
