AP: 850 #Aadhaar cards trashed #UID :-)

DC | 16th Dec 2012

Hyderabad: A bundle of 850 Aadhaar cards were found in a garbage bin near Barkas area late on Saturday evening.

After locals informed them, the police took possession of the cards and began an inquiry into how the identification cards ended up in the bin.

“We informed the concerned departments about the cards. The UID (Unique Identification Department) Madhapur will look into this. We have informed the revenue department and postal department too. Once we get a reply we can take action,” said Mohammed Taher Ali, Falaknuma ACP.

“Earlier, we got complaints against a postman in Nalgonda district for throwing away Aadhaar cards. He was later  sacked. The Falaknuma incident is the second such case coming to our notice. We will initiate stringent action against those responsible,” said M.V.S. Rami Reddy, deputy director-general of UIDAI, AP.

Dumped cards of  those who registered first

It has been found that the Aadhaar cards found in a dustbin near Barkas belonged to people of the area. The cards belong to those who enrolled during first round of registration four months ago.

While people are being driven from pillar-to-post over months and years to secure their Aadhaar cards, lakhs of cards have been lying undelivered for years together in post offices across the state.

The postal department has failed to deliver the cards, their reasons being “staff crunch” and “untraced addresses”. The department has returned nearly 50,000 untraced cards in May this year after holding on to them for over a year.

The postal staff is under tremendous pressure from the UIDAI authorities to clear the Aadhaar cards. Senior officials in the Postal Department are warning postmen to clear the cards at the earliest or face “disciplinary action”.

In Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts, 76 lakh people enrolled for Aadhaar cards, delivery was made to less than 65 lakh people.

“With the distribution of Aadhaar cards, our work burden has increased by five times over the normal duties. While each post office can deliver cards in hundreds a day, we are receiving cards in thousands from UIDAI. We need more staff to clear the cards,” said an official of the Postal Department.

For instance, in Musheerabad post office, there are eight postmen who can deliver 3,000 cards a day, but it is receiving 6,000 cards. Similar is the situation in all post offices across the state.

The police department is also putting the blame on Aadhaar enrolment centres for feeding in wrong addresses without verifying them properly, thus compounding the problems in making delivery.