Shillong, June 27: Aadhaar enrolment is picking up in Meghalaya after the Centre made the 12-digit unique identification number mandatory to avail of certain services and benefits.

Of the state's 11 districts, enrolment for Aadhaar is under way in East Khasi Hills and West Khasi Hills.

Enrolment for Aadhaar was first introduced in East Khasi Hills, which has as its headquaters Shillong, the state capital. While the process was introduced in the district in 2013, it was stalled following protests by various groups and started picking up only in May this year.

In West Khasi Hills, the process got under way from June 19. The administration took the initiative to push the process forward by engaging common service centres (kiosks set up by the government all over the state to give people easy access to various services) for Aadhaar enrolment. It has urged the people to visit the nearest CSC to get themselves enrolled.

The state government had signed an agreement with Avvas Infotech, a Hyderabad-based IT consultancy services company, in April this year for Aadhaar enrolment in the state.

Additional chief secretary Peter W. Ingty, who is also the state nodal officer of census operations and National Population Register (NPR), told The Telegraph today, "The enrolment is in progress and it will be conducted according to the master plans of the district administrations and the availability of manpower. Avvas Infotech has to meet the manpower requirement."

In East Khasi Hills, Avvas Infotech requires at least 33 teams of two enrolment operators each to push the enrolment forward. "We already have 23 teams and require 10 more. We hope we can complete 70 per cent enrolment by the end of this year," East Khasi Hills deputy commissioner P.S. Dkhar said.

Ingty said Aadhaar enrolment would begin in other districts soon. "We have asked the firm to complete Aadhaar enrolment in the state by June 2018," he added.

Ingty also said Aadhaar enrolment, which was 10 per cent till recently, had gone up slightly.

The process to enrol the residents biometrically for Aadhaar was to start in Meghalaya in 2013. But it did not because of opposition from various groups.

The people had opposed biometric data collection (fingerprints, iris image) for Aadhaar, fearing it would invade a person's privacy. However, the demand for Aadhaar cards has received a huge response from the public all of a sudden.

Recently, the Centre linked Aadhaar with various government schemes. It also linked Aadhaar with Permanent Account Number (PAN) to eliminate fake or multiple PANs held by the same person from the system.