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Published: Tuesday, Jan 15, 2013, 8:00 IST

 

By Sanjeev Devasia | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA

 

 

 

If you are among those who think that obtaining an Aadhar card is not important, then you could be a suspect to officials of the state carrying out the Aadhar card enrolment.

 

 

Also, officials at the collectorate level will soon match and collate data of voters, data of those availing the Public Distribution System (PDS), data of electricity connections and also those availing scholarships among other schemes with the Aadhar card data to cross-verify whether there is duplication or false information and, more importantly, find out whether they are falsely claiming benefits from any government scheme.

 

 

A senior official of the state government said, “With the collation of data, we are expecting a 10-15% saving for the government in the form of stopping leakages in the system due to false data provided by false beneficiaries.”

 

 

He added, “For example, if there is a 45-year-old man who is claiming the benefits of a senior citizen, then the truth will be out as the data of various agencies will be matched with the Aadhar data, which will have the person’s photograph and biometric identity.”

 

 

An official of the state IT department said “Officials of various collectorates will start the exercise of matching the data procured from various agencies and we will be providing with software to match the data. But this exercise will only start after maximum enrolment is carried out and only a few is remaining to be enrolled. If even after maximum enrolment is carried out and there are citizens who have not opted for an Aadhar card, then we will feel they have something to hide.”

 

 

However, the progress of enrolment for Aadhar cards has not been very fast in Mumbai. Of around 1.25 crore people, only 70 lakh have enrolled, while in districts such as Wardha and Amravati have registered about 90-100% enrolment.