More than 70 per cent of the Aadhar card applications by Salt Lake residents have got cancelled. 

The Aadhar camps had begun in the township in April 2013 and continued off and on depending on how often and for how long the system was hit by technical snags. In the initial stages, camps would be held every week in community halls and residents would queue up to fill up forms and get their biometric data collected. 

But sources in the census office have now disclosed that over 1,50,000 of the applications made are invalid and will have to be redone. The population of Bidhannagar Assembly as per the 2011 census is 2,15,000.

The Aadhar card is being issued by the central government and will assign a unique 12-digit identification number to every Indian who opts for it. Of late, they are being linked to one’s bank account in order to receive subsidies for LPG cylinders.

Residents do not need to pay to get an Aadhar card made but once they arrive at the camp they are photographed. Their retina and fingerprints are also scanned and their personal details collected. 

A source at the census office in Janganana Bhavan in IB Block says that majority of the applications have had to be binned. “The quality of either the photographs or the fingerprints was poor. There were also a lot of human errors and some data did not get uploaded to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) server,” he said.

The job for data collection was outsourced to Madras Security Printers in the initial phase and there have been complaints from around the country about their lack of efficiency.

Some have even alleged that they sold data to private players. “The agency hasn’t been paid yet,” said another source.
To check if your previously-filled Aadhar form has been cancelled, log on to www.uidai.gov.in and enter the number you had been given the last time. If it has indeed been cancelled you will have to do the tests again. 

Aadhar camps have resumed in community halls from this year but there is no clarity on where and when they are happening. Apparently ward councillors are being notified beforehand.

But there are two permanent offices where residents can head to get their Aadhar forms filled up. One is Janganana Bhavan at IB 199 and the other on the fifth floor of Poura Bhavan. Once you visit one of these centres you will be asked to fill a form for the National Population Register (NPR) after which you will be eligible for an Aadhar card. They will give you a date, within six months, to come and get your biometric tests done and thereafter you can expect your Aadhar card to reach you in another three months. 

In case of postal delay, you can log on to www.uidai.gov.in and enter a number that you will be given during your test. You may take a colour print out of the form and it will be as valid as the Aadhar card you will get by post.
 
To cover up the goof-ups made over the past two years, the census office is hoping to cover 1,80,000 to 1,90,000 residents by March but the backlog at the IB Block and Poura Bhavan centres are so huge that both have waiting lists for biometric tests till around November 2015. 

While the IB Block unit has been a permanent centre for Aadhar information collection right from the start, Poura Bhavan started its unit in winter. Poura Bhavan clears between 30 and 40 applications a day and the IB Block centre 70 to 80. 
Residents are least amused by the blunder. Lakshmi Devi Agarwal, a septugenarian, had stood in the queue at her DA Block community centre last year to get her data collected but then heard nothing from the officials thereafter. “Months went by without any news of the card so I came to Poura Bhavan to find out about it. Now they say my application was rejected. I have to again fill up a form now,” she said on Wednesday. 

Bibha Adhikari of FD Block has lost count of the number of times she has been visiting Poura Bhavan chasing her Aadhar card. “I first came on January 3 and got the formalities done. When I returned a fortnight later they said they had lost my papers. So I filled up my form again and returned a few days later to be told that they were again missing! This is plain harassment,” she said.