Aadhaar before name for Gurgaon babies

TNN | May 3, 2017, 03.17 AM IST

GURUGRAM: Amit Singh’s son was born at Gurgaon’s civil hospital on April 28. He has yet to name his son, but the baby already has an Aadhaarnumber.

Within hours of his son’s birth, the hospital staff arrived with Aadhaar officials, camera in hand, and requested to take the infant’s picture.

“They collected photocopies of my Aadhaar card and documents and gave us a receipt with the 12-digit identity number,” said Singh. The biometrics – iris scan and fingerprints – will be done later, after the child turns six.

There was no way Singh could have refused, because without an Aadhaar number, his son would not get a birth certificate. That’s the rule in Haryana now.

“A newborn needs to be enrolled for Aadhaar before he or she is discharged from hospital,” said a civil hospital staff. The process starts soon after birth. Photo, name, address and parents’ details are captured and EID (Enrolment ID number) or UID (Aadhaar number) of either mother or father is linked with the baby’s enrolment number. This data is sent online from the Aadhaar enrolment machine to the birth registration software and a birth certificate is generated with the infant’s Aadhaar number.

On an average, 10 newborn babies are enrolled for Aadhaar every day at the civil hospital here. The hospital has a full-fledged Aadhaar centre with two permanent employees.

In May 2015, Haryana became the first state to launch an Aadhaar-linked birth registration programme, which made it mandatory for parents to first enrol their newborn for Aadhaar before a birth certificate could be issued.

The programme picked up steam after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in May last year that this will be rolled out nationally. Haryana started implementing this rigidly and started setting up Aadhaar centres in all government hospitals. The Gurgaon civil hospital got its Aadhaar centre about six months ago.

“Children are registered for Aadhaar with biometric details of one of their parents. Fingerprints of newborns are not very clear. These details are updated at a later stage,” said an official at the Aadhaar centre at the civil hospital.

A senior health department official in Chandigarh said, “Last year, the UIDAI (the unique identification authority of India) relaxed its rules to bring children under five years under its ambit. Earlier, children were not registered for Aadhaar because up to the age of five years, a child’s biometric data like fingerprints keep changing.”

Under the new rules, children were allowed to have Aadhaar registration even if they had no name. Their biometric details are now captured after the age of six years. The UIADI website says, “If an Aadhaar Card of a child below the age of five years is created, it will be linked to the parent’s Aadhaar Card.”

But while the civil hospital has an Aadhaar centre, in Gurgaon’s private hospitals, parents click their newborn’s picture – on camera or phone – and share it with the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon to issue them both an Aadhaar and a birth certificate.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/gurgaon/aadhaar-before-name-for-gurgaon-babies/articleshow/58485945.cms