While 100 percent of the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh residents reported satisfaction with their Aadhaar experience, at the other end of the spectrum, 0 percent of Meghalaya residents were pleased with their Aadhaar experience, the 2019 State of Aadhaar survey has revealed.
Meghalaya, with a population of 2.96 million according to the 2011 national census, was rock-bottom in terms of satisfaction with Aadhaar, which the Union government has made mandatory for accessing social welfare schemes, the survey conducted by Dalberg and supported by Omidyar Network India, has found.
This is the third year of the State of Aadhaar survey and covered 1.7 lakh households.
Meghalaya ranked second in terms of Aadhaar penetration with a reach of 39 percent, second only to Assam which recorded the fewest percentage of residents with the central government’s biometric card at 10 percent. Assam is the only state in the country to have conducted the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise to identify immigrants in the state.
Only half of the Goa residents were satisfied with their Aadhaar experience. Kerala (61 percent), Assam (69 percent), and Puducherry (75 percent) rounded out the top five of the least satisfied regions in the country. Among the most pleased, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh were followed by Delhi, Haryana, and Odisha each of which recorded 99 percent satisfaction rate.
Punjab recorded the highest instance of Aadhaar-related exclusion from services at 21 percent. Interestingly, its Aadhaar satisfaction still came in at 94 percent. Karnataka had 20.8 percent exclusion rate and the satisfaction rate in the southern state was recorded at 83 percent.
Aadhaar and school enrolments
Flouting Supreme Court order and UIDAI’s guidance, many schools across the country insisted on Aadhaar for enrollment.
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the statutory body in charge of the Aadhaar, has insisted that the biometric card is not compulsory for school admission. The Supreme Court too has ruled that Aadhaar should not infringe on the right to education, but school authorities continued to govern by their own rules.
Seventy three percent of schools insisted on Aadhaar for admission. Thirteen percent of school-age children experienced a delay in school enrolment related to furnishing Aadhaar.
“In addition, 0.5 percent of school-age children could not enrol in school due to Aadhaar related reasons—an estimated 1 million children, or one fourth of all unenrolled children whose parents wished to enrol them,” said the survey.
First Published: IST