‘Individual’s consent must before Aadhaar enrolment’

SHILLONG: GAD Minister HDR Lyngdoh informed the Assembly on Friday that as far as biometric enrolment under NPR/Aadhaar is concerned, the Aadhaar Act makes it mandatory for the consent of individual to be taken before enrolment is carried out.
“This provision is being observed by the enrolment agencies. Hence the question of violation of Supreme Court’s interim order does not arise,” Lyngdoh said in a written statement in reply to the call attention notice tabled by Ardent Basaiawmoit (HSPDP).
Lyngdoh said that wider consultations with pressure groups and others who are opposing Aadhaar led to more understanding and cooperation from general public and even NGOs.
Biometric enrolment was initially restarted in five districts and gradually taken up in all districts.
“Till date only around 7% of the targeted population has been covered and unfortunately another stumbling block has come up in the form of  poor performance of the vendor parties appointed by Registrar General of India (RGI) for the State and the shoddy performance of the enrolment agencies appointed by the CPSUs.
“A number of cases have been reported by the Deputy Commissioners, that on appointed days for biometric enrolment in specific camps, hundreds of people had come for biometric enrolment, but no enrolment was done in the absence of enrolment agencies due to the payment problems with the CPSUs,” Lyngdoh said.
According to Lyngdoh, these problems were brought to the notice of RGI in review meetings and the RGI had issued a letter authorizing the State government to function as a Registrar in addition to the CPSUs, thereby enabling the government to appoint enrolment agencies which will report to the government.
GAD, which is the nodal agency of the state will prepare NIT (notice inviting tender), in consultation with NIC and office of RGI, for floating a tender within a month to appoint enrolment agencies to cover the uncovered areas of the State, Lyngdoh said.