An Aadhaar card centre located at Gaindikhata under Bahadarabad block in Haridwar district has been shut down by the order of the District Magistrate Haridwar on Saturday following complaints lodged by some Gujjar community people against the centre for delivering cards full of errors.
The action followed a complaint lodged by a Gujjar family which stated that the cards, delivered to members of the family, have the same dates of birth printed in them. This aside, several other complaints have been lodged over the past few months according to which the individual details printed in the Aadhar cards were wrong. A resident of the locality said that over 400 cards delivered by the centre contained errors, including dates of birth.
He said that being illiterate people, they came to learn about the errors much later after their applications for ration cards based on Aadhar cards were rejected by the department concerned.
The administration has taken the step to have it shut down after it was convinced through investigation that the centre has been preparing and delivering such unique identification cards without caring to follow the rules such centres are meant to follow.
It is learnt that the sub-divisional magistrate M Kumar would head an inquiry into the matter constituted by the district magistrate.
The people who are at the receiving end of things are in a grave problem with the Centre making the 12 digit Aadhar identification numbers an imperative for opening of bank accounts, acquiring ration cards and availing the government-run schemes like pension. “The Centre is forcing us to acquire such cards, on one hand and the centres entrusted with preparing such cards for us are delivering cards which contain wrong details about us, on the other, landing us thus in deep problem,” said one of those who received Aadhar card with wrong date of birth.
Jahangir, another resident of Bahadarabad block, said that he had made his Aadhar card in a school in which a camp for making Aadhar cards was held around two years ago. His family members had also made the Aadhar cards from the same centre, he said. “Due to negligence of those registering details at the centre, birth days of all the family members were written the same as January 1. Subsequently, we are being deprived of the fruits of several government-run welfare schemes. Even, we are not getting our rations under the public distribution system as our applications for ration cards based on the Aadhar cards have been rejected. And it was after the rejection that we came to learn about the errors our Aadhar cards contain ,” he said. He further said that around 400 people of the same Gujjar basti are having the same dates of birth - January 1-printed in their cards. “We are appealing to the administration to hold another camp to have the errors corrected,” he said.