Enrolment for Aadhaar extended by a month
Initially the enrolment drive for Aadhaar
numbers, scheduled to be completed by Tuesday (December 31), has been extended
by a month.
This follows the request of the State
government for extending the deadline, a senior official of the Census
Operations says, adding that at the end of January, the position will be
reviewed for any further extension.
As part of the drive which forms part of
the National Population Register (NPR), finger prints and iris scan of people
are captured, in addition to photographs. The main reason for postponement of
the deadline is that Chennai’s performance has been below the overall State’s
coverage of 70.76 per cent. As on December 25, the coverage in the city was
54.42 per cent. The State government is particular that the drive should
continue till Chennai also records 70 per cent coverage. Out of 41.53 lakh
persons to be covered in the city which now includes areas transferred from
Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts, the drive has covered about 22.6 lakh
persons.
Apart from Chennai, there are 10 districts such as Kancheepuram, The Nilgiris, Tiruvananmalai, Tiruvallur, Krishnagiri and Tirupur whose coverage is below 70 per cent. Those who have not been covered under the enrolment drive can still have their biometric details captured after the establishment of permanent centres at the level of taluk or urban local bodies, the official says. All over the State, the bio-metric details of 4.77 crore have been captured, representing 70.76 per cent of those who are aged five years and above.Aadhaar numbers were generated for around 3.86 crore people of those covered.
