Denizens of Guwahati who are standing in serpentine queues to collect their forms of Aadhaar enrolment and are worried if they will be denied basic services without it heaved a sigh of relief on Tuesday.
UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) in an official statement made it clear that services like health services, admission to schools, and ration at fair price shops will be available even without Aadhaar.
The official twitter page also made it clear that the basic social services shouldn’t be denied for want of Aadhaar number.
The UIDAI said that it took cognizance of media reports that reported that some genuine beneficiary was denied entry into a hospital because of lack of Aadhaar, and so on and so forth.
“However, there have been some media reports that some service providers are denying essential and other services for want of Aadhaar. Such violations are punishable under respective laws of the land. Under no circumstance, anyone can be denied a service just because he/she doesn’t have an Aadhaar,” the statement said.
The statement said UIDAI is again writing to Chief Secretaries of all the states/UTs to ensure that Section 7 of Aadhaar Act, 2016 is implemented in its true letter and spirit for all the schemes so that no denial happens due to want of Aadhaar.
Sasanka Buragohain, a city youth who is sceptical regarding Aadhaar said, “It is good that this point has been cleared by UIDAI. In places like Haryana, people died because they were denied treatment without Aadhaar. Here, at least, this won’t happen now.”
However, the fact that there are less number of Aadhaar enrolment centres compared to the population is creating problem for people. Shyamapada Mukherjee, a resident of Maligaon says, “The Aadhaar enrolment centres are not functioning properly thus increasing our woes. There are just one or two people in the centres which is not sufficient to handle so many people. Because of this, we have to wait almost the entire day in the queue and our other works get affected due to that.”