Last week, during an enrolment camp by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the biometric data of three boys were rejected by the system due to duplication: the three were already registered.
The boys, all younger than 14, had been brought to a State home for children, where rescued runaway children are rehabilitated, between February and May this year, after being found wandering in the city
One of the boys has a mental disability, and the other two are believed to have developmental disabilities.
Adding to the difficulty one of them could not remember his name and had been named by the staff at the home.
With the help of the Aadhaar head office in New Delhi, a senior UIDAI official told The Hindu , the biometric information yielded the boy’s original name and the place where he was registered.
They got similar details for the other two boys, which revealed they were from Indore, Jharkhand and Chittoor.
With the help of NGOs in those cities, officials got in touch with the families of the boys.
Now, the boys need to be reunited with their families, and that part of the exercise in is in progress. “We have roped in NGOs to bring the parents of the boys to Bengaluru to reunite with them” the official said. He did not reveal any further information about the boys to protect their identities.
“We want the children to identify their parents as part of the standard operating procedure,” Divya Narayanappa District Child Protection Officer, said. “We would be happy to reunite the children with their families, but we have some formalities to be completed and are waiting for this.”
