According to officials, around 7.7 lakh people have been enrolled for the UID cards and efforts have been stepped up to take the figure to a 100 per cent. Officials said that the UT Administration has not only provided logistical support in the form of space at its e-sampark centers to the officials of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) which has facilitated the enrollment, but in a government directive earlier it also specified that the UID cards will be treated both as an address and residence proof in delivery of services.
Director IT, Chandigarh Administration, Tanvi Garg, said that UT, in a bid to increase the enrollment, allowed the usage of its e-sampark centers for enrollment purposes. “Based on the population that each center caters to, we have identified many centers where the documents for the UID cards are processed. Earlier the Administration also issued a notification asking people to get the UID cards for residence and identification proof,” said Garg.
Garg said that since the footfall at the e-sampark centers is very high it is one of the reasons that the figures were reached. “People coming to the e-sampark centers have been told to enroll for the UID cards,” she said.
Deputy Director General (DDG), UIDA, Keshani Anand Arora, said that Chandigarh is one of the best performing Union territories in India. Arora also said that only some other UTs like Pondicherry have better figures. “We hope to reach the target of 100 per cent by January 1 when the central government starts the cashless transfer facility,” Arora added.
UT Administration officials boast that the figures are an indicator of their better performance. They say that even before the central government announced the cashless transfer facility, they used the UID platform to offer the services. “The UID platform was earlier used by the Administration to allot the houses by the Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB).
A survey was carried out by the district administration which identified as many as 23,000 families for the allotment of houses. While over 12,000 houses are under construction, the allotment of some 1200 houses has been made using UID as a basis. The rest of the houses are being alloted using the UID as an identification only,” said a UT official.