Just over six months after it was launched, the Centre’s national portal for issuing certificates of identity to transgender persons has issued 1,557 certificates as of Wednesday, according to Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry data.
A total of 2,805 applications had been received since the launch of the portal on November 25 last year. Of them, 1,125 came from Andhra Pradesh, 696 from Odisha, 246 from Madhya Pradesh, 225 from Gujarat and 101 from Puducherry, data accessed by The Hindu showed.
Many States, however, had applications in single digit. Assam and Goa saw one application each; Rajasthan and Jammu & Kashmir had two each; and Punjab and Chhattisgarh had three applications each.
Out of the total, 2,327 applications were found to be valid, out of which 1,557 applicants had been issued certificates and 770 were pending, the data showed.
Among the issues related to the portal raised by trans activists was the language barrier.
Grace Banu, a Dalit and trans rights activist based in Tamil Nadu, said the portal was available for those who understand English or Hindi, leaving out a large part of the country.
Speaking during a webinar organised by Bahujan Economists, a platform for students and researchers in economics from marginalised communities, on Tuesday, she said trans persons were finding it difficult to access welfare schemes for lack of IDs and the portal wMoreas not accessible to many.
More accessibility
When asked to comment, a senior official of the Ministry said the portal, which was available in English at transgender.dosje.gov.in, would be made available in five regional languages also by July to make it accessible to trans persons from across the country.
The official added that the format of the application could be translated soon.
However, integrating the information into the central database would take longer.
The official said the portal would be made available in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, and one North Eastern language would be included by the end of June or early in July.
