UIDAI goof-up: Twin Aadhaar for toddler

Pavneet Singh Chadha

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 20

A Chandigarh couple was left bemused on receiving two Aadhaar cards via post yesterday, registered in the name of their two-year-old son Pranav Saini.

“We do not know which one of these Aadhaar cards is authentic and can be used as identity proof of our son,” said the toddler’s father Parveen Kumar Saini, a resident of Sector 42.

Saini, Assistant Professor at CEC, Landran, Mohali, said on Monday evening, they received an envelope by post, which contained two Aadhaar cards issued in the name of his son Pranav Saini, with two different 12-digit Aadhaar numbers.

“All other particulars in the cards, including name, father’s name, date of birth and gender, are identical. How can a two-year-old have multiple Aadhaar cards?” asked the confused father.

Saini said he had enrolled for his son’s Aadhaar for admission purposes since the pre-nursery school required an identity proof of the boy.

On November 18, 2017, Saini visited an enrolment centre (eSampark) in Sector 43 and submitted supporting documents and received an acknowledgement mentioning the enrolment ID.

A month later, he received an email from the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), stating that “the mentioned EID got rejected due to a data process error. Please re-enrol.”

He visited a private centre, Alankit Limited in Sector 33, and received a receipt with a new enrolment ID. After 15 days, when he checked the status on the UIDAI website, it said, “No data found.”

After raising the matter with the customer care, Saini said he was told by authorities to enrol for a third time since they found no data against the mentioned enrolment number. Then, he went to Canara Bank in Sector 35 for enrolment.

“Since my son is below five, my biometric details and Aadhaar card information was taken. But how did the system not detect any duplication? It is strange that two cards are issued against one set of fingerprints. I am worried that data has been breached,” said Saini.

He wrote an email to the UIDAI officials flagging his concerns of misuse of data last month, but received no reply.

An official on the UIDAI helpline number said such cases were extremely ‘rare’. “It is possible that a different set of biometrics were entered during enrolment,” the official said.