#India – Identity crisis slows Aadhaar rollout #UID #biometrics

Ajanta Chakraborty, TNN | Jun 15, 2013, 03.55 AM IST

Many residents, after waiting in long queues for biometric identification, have ended up with mistaken identities as their National Resident Identity Card (NRIC) – loosely called the ” Aadhaar” card – display the wrong data.

Blame it on the new software (Aadhaar version 2.2.1.0) which, while enrolling a resident into the system, would wrongly provide the name of his home district. Documents available with TOI reveal that several residents of Cossipore, Baghbazar, Shyambazar, Hatkhola, Beadon Street, Dum Dum, Ghugudanga, Alambazar, Baranagar, Belgachia, Motijheel, Bediapara and Noapara have been enrolled as living in Bankura. Strangely enough, the identification data displays Kolkata as a sub-district.

Residents of Bansdroni, who were enrolled as living in the sub-district of Budge Budge-1 and the district of South 24-Parganas, were one of the lucky few to have had the mistake rectified. Others have been given wrong pin-codes, even though most of the other relevant data is correct.

The mismatch of data has made collating impossible. Consequently, NPR programmes are being stalled in several areas. A ruckus erupted recently at Nurpur at Diamond Harbour, South 24-Parganas, when residents realized that the master data contained wrong inputs, sources said.

They said pin codes weren’t available at the Srifalberia mouja in the same district, and the enrolment camps had to be folded up. Trouble erupted in areas like Tollygunge and Diamond Harbour because even after verification, the errors could not be corrected as the new software has no provision for rectification. Once the enrolment is done, the census directorate, with help from local civic bodies, uplink the data and the unique identification number is generated and sent to individuals by post in the form of the Resident Identity Card (RIC).

Progress of biometric enrolment has been tardy in Bengal, which has long kicked off the process of collecting biometric imprints to create the NPR, with only about 22 per cent of the population of the 9.1 crore being covered. The pilot project for Howrah is over, but work in North Dinajpur, Bankura and Purulia is yet to commence.

Officials in the state census directorate, which is implementing NPR, revealed that the implementation of the “Aadhaar” card is likely to suffer a bigger jolt because of the flawed software. “Since an individual will be provided with his 12-digit unique identification only once in his lifetime, the mistakes should be corrected either in the second round of biometric identification or done centrally through the census directorate which functions directly under the aegis of the Register General of India (RGI),” a census directorate official said.

N S Nigam, district magistrate, South 24-Parganas, admitted to “some problems” in a few blocks. “The pin codes are different and the names of the district wrongly enrolled,” he said. Sanjay Bansal, DM of North 24-Parganas also said there were “issues related to pin codes”. State officials admit that the progress of NPR was “very slow” indeed.

P K Majumdar, acting director of census operations, said, “I am not authorized to speak to the media.” Calls to S K Chakraborty, deputy director general, Register General of India (RGI), went unanswered.