The enrolment drive for Aadhaar numbers, scheduled to be completed by Tuesday (December 31), has been extended by a month.
This follows the request of the State government for extending the deadline, a senior official of the Census Operations says, adding that at the end of January, the position will be reviewed for any further extension.
As part of the drive which forms part of the National Population Register (NPR), finger prints and iris scan of people are captured, in addition to photographs. The main reason for postponement of the deadline is that Chennai’s performance has been below the overall State’s coverage of 70.76 per cent.
As on December 25, the coverage in the city was 54.42 per cent. The State government is particular that the drive should continue till Chennai also records 70 per cent coverage. Out of 41.53 lakh persons to be covered in the city which now includes areas transferred from Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts, the drive has covered about 22.6 lakh persons.
Apart from Chennai, there are 10 districts such as Kancheepuram, The Nilgiris, Tiruvananmalai, Tiruvallur, Krishnagiri and Tirupur whose coverage is below 70 per cent. But, the official feels that it is a matter of time that the 70-per cent mark will be achieved in these districts. While two districts – Ariyalur and Nagapattinam – have exceeded 80 per cent coverage, 20 districts are in the range of 70 to 80 per cent.
Those who have not been covered under the enrolment drive can still have their biometric details captured after the establishment of permanent centres at the level of taluk or urban local bodies, the official says.
All over the State, the bio-metric details of 4.77 crore have been captured, representing 70.76 per cent of those who are aged five years and above. Aadhaar numbers have been generated for around 3.86 crore people of those covered.
