Following reports about severe issues, including financial death due to multiple issues with Aadhaar cards and non-availability of Aadhaar seva kendras (ASKs), the unique identification authority of India (UIDAI) is planning to increase the number of ASKs to 470 from 88.
According to
a report from the Economic Times (ET), this expansion aims to address the significant increase in daily transactions, with approximately 750,000 updates and 75,000 new enrolments recorded.
"To implement this, the government has issued a proposal inviting large facility management firms to establish and operate these centres, following a model similar to passport seva kendras (PSKs). UIDAI-appointed managers will oversee operations to ensure service quality and security. The expansion focuses on districts with high demand, particularly urban areas, to enhance accessibility and efficiency for citizens requiring Aadhaar services," the report says.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) manages PSKs for the passport services. According to ET, for ASKs too, the government will have one or two large companies operating these centres.
As reported by Moneylife, countless people from rural areas, especially from Jharkhand are unable to withdraw money from their bank accounts because the accounts have been frozen until they complete KYC formalities.
According to surveys conducted in Latehar and Lohardaga districts by the local National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) Sahayata Kendras, the victims of this mass freezing of bank accounts include elderly pensioners who depend on their meagre pensions, children who receive scholarships, and women entitled to Rs1,000 per month under Jharkhand's new Maiya Samman Yojana.
It says, "KYC formalities are not easy to complete for poor people. They require biometric verification of the Aadhaar number at a Pragya Kendra, taking the verification certificate to the bank, filling a form there, and submitting both with the requisite documents. After that, the customer is at the mercy of the bank for timely reactivation of the account. This can take months."
The case of Bhola Oraon is also related to KYC issues but at a different level altogether. His bank account has the right spelling of his name, but his Aadhaar card shows his name as 'Bhoula Oraon'. Result? His bank account is also frozen. The same is the case with Basant Oraon, whose bank account is frozen because his Aadhaar shows his name as Basnt Oraon.
The most strange case is of Sarita Oraon. For the past three years, her bank account has been frozen. Reason? Her Aadhaar card mentions her name as Archana. All attempts to resolve the problem have failed so far—ditto with Bhola Oraon and Basant Oraon.
These are just a few examples shared on X by Road Scholarz (@roadscholarz), a handle maintained by freelance scholars and student volunteers interested in action-oriented research, socio-economic rights and related issues. It says, "Notice how all these discrepancies are due to wrong data entry in Aadhaar cards. Everyone knows that demographic details in the Aadhaar database are unreliable – then why insist on 100% consistency with Aadhaar in bank accounts?"
Further, the last-mile data entry in India is so poor that it leads to glaring errors in the spelling of names across different certificates and mistakes in date of birth and other demographic details of people.
In addition, the problems with biometric authentication, especially for those with calloused and work-worn hands, are well-known.
In short, for every bank account-holder, it is definitely a Herculean task to first rectify their Aadhaar and then keep visiting the bank to complete KYC.
In addition, there is a lack of proper infrastructure and internet bandwidth to carry out the e-KYC at bank branches in rural areas. 'Server down' or 'No network' are the two most common causes customers face in these branches. Add to this, lack of manpower and you will realise why a customer needs to visit the branch repeatedly for any work.
It means, that UIDAI not only has to increase the number of ASKs but also focus on improving infrastructure and internet bandwidth so that Aadhaar-holders suffer less.
You ignore basic infrastructure, especially in rural India, and Aadhaar, the one pill for every ill, will remain the biggest hurdle causing financial death for poor villagers.
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