In a first of its kind, Bengaluru Central Prison will have its own staff conduct Aadhaar enrolment and updation for all the undertrials and convicts in the prison.
The central prison has close to 5,000 inmates and a majority of them are yet to get their unique identity numbers.
In March this year, the Union Home Ministry mandated that all prisoners should have Aadhaar. Karnataka, however, had begun its efforts much earlier, in 2014.
With some inmates completing their term and new ones coming in, the prison authorities have decided to have their own independent setup to ensure Aadhaar for all inmates. According to Chief Superintendent of the prison Somashekar, the enrolment began last Friday. The staff will provide the permanent address of the inmates based on their records, while the current address will be stated as the central prison.
“We began Aadhaar enrolment in 2014 itself, and completed the process for all inmates then. But since there is regular admission and release of prisoners, it’s a hassle to write to the authorities every time to have kiosks set up. If we have our own unit, we can take up the enrolment as and when required,” said Superintendent of the prison Ramesh P.S.
The prison authorities got two of their staff trained at one of the UIDAI-empanelled centres. “Our staff attended the training, got good scores in the exam, and got certified. They are now authorised to take up the enrolment,” said Mr. Ramesh.
According to Project Director of Aadhaar at the Centre for e-Governance H.L. Prabhakar, training of prison staff has been completed for eight prisons across Karnataka, and Bengaluru Central Prison was the first to start. “In future, we will continue to give technical support to the prison authorities in enrolling and updation,” he added.
Further, the authorities plan to get at least two more employees trained. “There is a possibility that the presently trained employees are transferred or they are on leave. So, we are thinking of training a few others too,” said Mr. Ramesh.
At present, around 300 of the 4,566 inmates of the prison have Aadhaar. The trained staff are enrolling at least 10 inmates every day. The prison authorities recently completed opening of bank accounts with the State Bank of India for all the inmates.
