Aadhaar cards will not be issued to first-time applicants above the age of 18 in Assam from October, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Thursday, citing enrolment “saturation” and the state’s efforts “to curb possible fraudulent enlistments by infiltrators”.
Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and tea garden communities will get a one-year window to apply for enrolment. Anybody else who has not applied has time till September to do so, irrespective of religion or community.
District commissioners will be authorised to allow Aadhaar enrolment of citizens above 18 “in rarest of rare cases” after verification by the police’s special branch and foreigners’ tribunals, an official statement said.
“The State Cabinet has approved the notification/ implementation of revised SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for Aadhaar Enrolment of citizens above 18 years of age in Assam to curb possible fraudulent Aadhaar enrolment of any infiltrators,” the statement said.
Sarma said the move would serve as a deterrent to infiltrators.
“We have been regularly pushing back infiltratorsfrom Bangladesh, but wecannot say for sure that no one has slipped in. This precautionary move is to ensure no infiltrator becomes an Indian citizen in the future. This move is a deterrent,” the chief minister said.
Sarma said the enrolment saturation among the general category was 102 per cent, which means more people have acquired Aadhaar than those eligible. The saturation percentage is 96 per cent among SCs, STs and the tea garden tribes.
In a post on his X handle, Sarma said: “In Assam, barring a few sections of people, for whom we will be making an exception, everyone else has received an Aadhaarcard. New Aadhaar cardswill only be issued by DCsin rarest of rare cases to ensure a robust mechanism to check applications by illegal infiltrators.”
The official statement said the SOP was needed to ensure that no infiltrators from across the border get Aadhaar cards fraudulently.
A source said: “Although the UIDAI issues Aadhaar cards, applicant verification is in the hands of the state government. A state government can push for change in consultation with the Centre. Influx remains a sensitive issuein Assam.”
The chief minister had said in June that his government was pushing for a strict Aadhaar regime to help check infiltration from neighbouring Bangladesh by making the issuance of cards tight.