Aadhaar registration again from April 1

HYDERABAD: Registration for Aadhaar cards issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which was temporarily halted in the state from February 15 on technical grounds, will be resumed from April 1.This information was given by minister for food, civil supplies, legal metrology and consumer affairs D Sridhar Babu during the question hour in the state Assembly on Friday.Assuring that all eligible persons would receive the card by the end of this year, he said the would adopt the Aadhaar card as the basis for all government schemes, including pension and scholarship, once the entire population was covered by the scheme.Answering the main question raised by P Keshav, E Lakshminarayana, Vijay Prasad, Ahmed Balala and others, the minister said the government planned to issue Aadhaar cards to 8.46 crore people in the state in six months.The central government's Aadhaar project aims to provide a unique identity number to each citizen of the country.As a pilot project, the state civil supplies department has implemented the project in seven districts— East Godavari, Anantapur, Chittoor, Srikakulam, Rangareddy, Hyderabad and Adilabad— in the first phase.Sridhar Babu said the government was contemplating issuing Aadhaar numberbased smart Cards to all BPL families in the state.These cards can be used to buy rations from fair price shops and for several other purposes. Biometric system will be used to prevent misuse of the cards.“The central government pays Rs 50 for each enrolment under the UIDAI project. The civil supplies department has entrusted the work to a private agency after calling tenders and is paying it Rs 29 for each enrolment, thus saving Rs 21 for the government on each enrolment."In the second phase, the enrolment process will be taken up in urban areas covered municipal corporations while the work in towns and rural areas will be entrusted to registrars such as nationalised banks.Tenders were invited and one software agency has come forward to undertake the enrolment work by charging the government Rs 35 for each enrolment.The government would take action if anyone was found involved in irregularities in issuance of cards, the minister warned.Of the 8.46 crore people in the state, about 5.25 crore have been enrolled so far. Of them, 3 crore have been enrolled by the state civil supplies department and 2.25 crore by registrars (banks).While, 5.25 crore people were enrolled, 3.35 crore cards have been generated so far.The enrolment process was temporarily halted due to technical problems and a turf war between the Union home ministry and the Planning Commission.