People of Kanjasa village in Allahabad were in for a weird surprise when around 1,000 of them received their Aadhaar cards bearing the same birth date — 1 January.
“Nearly 1,000 (of the 5,000) residents have complained about faulty entries of their date of birth. The odd thing is that the date printed on all these cards is identical — 1 January — with variations in the years of birth,” Neeraj Dubey, local Block Development Officer told Press Trust of India.
“Once the inquiry is complete and accountability is fixed, appropriate action will be taken against those responsible for the massive goof-up,” Dubey added.
He has assured that the villagers will be provided new Aadhaar cards with their correct date of birth soon.
The blunder has once again fuelled the debate of discrepancy in Aadhaar card issuances. Only recently, Aadhaar was in the middle of a controversy as the Centre has been pushing to project Aadhaar as the national identity card while the Supreme Court cleared that Aadhaar can be voluntary and not mandatory.
Leakages and duplication have been the biggest challenges for the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the statutory body under ministry of electronics and information technology that is responsible for the issuance of Aadhaar cards.
However, the Aadhaar Act of 2016 is in compliance with what the Supreme Court has stated as under Section 7 of the Act, there is a provision through which one can avail the benefits on the basis of alternative identification documents if s/he doesn’t have the card.
