Assam bounces back with 4 times Aadhaar enrolment

GUWAHATI: Assam has made the biggest turnaround among the northeastern states by augmenting Aadhaar enrolment four times since the outbreak of Covid-19 in early 2020, despite biometric enrolment coming to a halt for several months to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.
“Shifting camps” from village to village, organised by the district administrations to reach out to the uncovered people, has been a major contributor in taking up the Aadhaar-enrolled population from merely 18.9% in January 2020 to 87.8% in October this year, Devajit Khound, deputy director general at the UIDAI regional office in Guwahati, told TOI on Monday.
Nevertheless, it’s the northeastern region where two states — Meghalaya and Nagaland — are at the bottom of the state-wise tally in terms of lowest Aadhaar allotment in the county.
Nagaland has been able to allot Aadhaar to only 64.4% of its projected population of 22.13 lakh, whereas the corresponding figure is 68.6% for Meghalaya where the projected population is 33.18 lakh.
“Assam has been a great success story in expediting Aadhaar enrolment by reaching out to the unreached tea garden workers and vast rural belt. Credit goes to the deputy commissioners who have been organising ‘shifting camps’ in the districts that are mobile and travel from one place to another,” said Khound.
The mammoth exercise to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC) resulted in a delayed start of Aadhaar enrolment in Assam from October 2018.
The state government was initially reluctant to give a go-ahead to the Aadhaar registration, as it was apprehensive that illegal migrants may get Aadhaar cards if the process gets started before updating the NRC. UIDAI later clarified that Aadhaar card has nothing to do with citizenship.
In Nagaland and Meghalaya, UIDAI officials said difficult terrain continues to be the major stumbling block in covering sizable numbers of population, especially outside the state capitals.
UIDAI data revealed that of the 3.5 crore projected population of Assam, highest in any northeastern state, 3.1 crore have got their Aadhaar cards by October.
In Nagaland, 14.24 lakh Aadhaar enrolment has been completed so far whereas 22.76 lakh people in Meghalaya have been allotted Aadhaar numbers.
In January 2020, Tripura was at the top among the northeastern states with the highest 93.3% of its 41 lakh people receiving Aadhaar cards. But by October this year, Mizoram had achieved the highest coverage status in the northeast with nearly cent per cent (99.8 per cent) of its 12.27 lakh projected population allotted Aadhar cards. Tripura now stands next to Mizoram with 98.3% Aadhaar enrollment.
UIDAI figures stated the latest percentage of Aadhaar enrolment in the rest of northeast as: Arunachal Pradesh (83.7%), Manipur (85.9%) and Sikkim (89.8%).