Bhubaneswar, July 28: Thirty-four-year-old Narayan Ojha waited four hours at an Aadhaar enrolment centre at Goutam Nagar today with his six-year-old son Nabyansh to get the identity card.
Parents like Narayan have been lining up at the nearest Aadhaar centres following the Centre's February directive followed by the state government's July decision making Aadhaar mandatory for children to avail of midday meals and other benefits under various Centre and state-sponsored schemes.
"I have enrolled my son in Class I this academic session. I have come to know that if he doesn't have an Aadhaar card, he will not get any benefits under government-sponsored schemes," said Ojha, who works with a private firm.
"So, I have taken a day off from work today to get him his Aadhaar card," he said.
Bidyut Prabha Mishra, 38, a schoolteacher, was seen discussing with the officials at an enrolment centre at Saheed Nagar to get her 10-year-old daughter an Aadhaar.
She said: "I came here yesterday and submitted the documents for enrolment. Today we are here to provide the biometric details."
Mishra said she had to visit the centre twice in two days because of the rush of people there.
"I took half a day off from work yesterday. Today, I had to take another half-day off for this. The administration is just harassing us," she said.
The state government, on the other hand, is making efforts to ease the service delivery process by deploying its officials to make field visits and achieve the 100 per cent enrolment target it had set by July 31.
At the same time, many people are seen lining up at the many enrolment centres of the Unique Identification Authority of India.
The city has 10 permanent and five camp-mode Aadhaar enrolment centres. The centres enrolled about 15,000 persons in the past fortnight as compared to about 8,000 in the previous fortnight.
Besides the physical centres, applicants are also opting for the online mode to enrol themselves and their children.
"I have no idea where the government is heading with the plan of Aadhaar. They make it mandatory for tax payers, which is understandable, but making it mandatory of schoolchildren is absolutely rubbish," said Alok Kar, a social worker.