Telangana stands tall among all the States by achieving 100% Aadhaar enrolment of its 3.82-crore population and comes second only to New Delhi.
Enrolment includes fingerprinting of all the 10 fingers and Iris scan of both the eyes.
The only ongoing activity at the 757 full-fledged enrolment centres and 277 bio-metric updation centres (some not necessarily standalone but on the same premises as enrolment offices), is processing of applications.
They are from migrants, non-resident Indians and other old people who kept missing out on enrolment and/or also needed updation including change of address and the like.
Dispelling a few but popular myths, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) Deputy Director-General M.V.S. Rami Reddy told The Hindu that as the name ‘Unique Identity’ went, no Aadhaar number would be given to any other person.
“Once a person gets a number, it is his or hers for life. Even after he/she expires, it will not be allotted to anyone,” he said.
Asked about bank accounts seeding with Aadhaar, he said that 83% of the approximately 1.62-crore bank accounts were seeded as far as Telangana was concerned.
The seeding was 89% of the about 1.98 crore accounts in Andhra Pradesh but when it came to enrolment, it was 98% in AP, he said.
Inactive numbers
When the officer’s attention was drawn to several cases of Aadhaar numbers that were inactive now and the fingerprints not matching or throwing up the correct identity, he said it was true.
“We undertake cleansing exercises as and when they are reported. For example, in Odisha there were at least 18,000 cases of fingerprints being smudged or not properly registering during enrolment.
“We fixed the problem by conducting a bio-metric updation campaign,” he explained.
