Applicants queue up in front of the registration counters at GPO in Patna on Monday. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

Patna, June 27: Get mentally prepared for a long haul while applying for unique identification (UID) card. The process of collecting and submitting its forms at the General Post Office (GPO) can test your nerves and stretch your patience.

Residents turning up at the GPO since June 25, when the registration process began, hardly expected this. For, corporate guru Nandan Nilekani, the co-founder of Infosys Technologies Limited, is the chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India — the agency responsible for issuing UID cards.

Unlike corporate efficiency, the applicants from across the state at the GPO have to face hurdles and confusion at every step — from collection of the application forms to the verification and the submission of documents. Many have had their application rejected, amid all the chaos.

Problems are aplenty. Forms — supposed to be made available free of cost — are being black-marketed. There are only three counters at the GPO for the registration. Long queues at these counters are putting off the applicants. The queues are mismanaged and lead to frequent altercation among the applicants. There is no separate queue for women or senior citizens. The processing of forms is also too slow.

“First of all, the forms, which are supposed to be made available free of cost to the citizens, are not available at the counters. The employees at the counters ask the applicants to buy the forms from black-marketers, who sell these at the entrance to the GPO,” Amit Kumar Singh, a student of Patna Science College, said.

The youth, who had turned up to pick a form today, added: “There are only three counters at the GPO though this is the only place for submitting UID applications. The long queues are not managed properly and this leads to altercations among the residents. Though there is such a rush at the counters, the processing of the forms is really slow.”

Several applicants complained against the absence of separate counters for women and senior citizens.

“It is complete anarchy out here. There is no separate counter for women,” Vijay Nagar resident Roshni Sinha said.

For many, standing for hours in the queue only results in disappointment.

“Even after standing in the queue for hours, my application got rejected as I could not produce an address proof. I had attached the electricity bill of my house, which is in my husband’s name. How can I get a proof of residence when most of the property is in my husband’s name?” asked Sinha.

Fathua resident Chandan Kumar, too, returned disappointed.

He said: “I left my home at 7am and reached the GPO at 9am. I stood in the queue for three hours, only to get my application rejected on the grounds of absence of birth certificate. This happened even when I had both the original and the photocopy of my Class X registration certificate with my date of birth mentioned on them. The employee at the counter told me that only a marksheet or pass certificate is valid.”

A facilitation centre could solve such problems but there is no such facility at the GPO.

The authorities, too, accept the problems but they can only offer scant hope.

“At present, we only have three counters. We were able to register around 80 applications each day. Thus, around 150 registrations have been completed since Saturday. We only have one biometric station. This is slowing down the process. We plan to start three more biometric stations within a fortnight. We expect to start three more UID registration stations here and 40 new UID registration centres in the state by July 15,” said Anil Kumar, director, business development, technology and marketing, GPO, Patna.