Enrolment of Aadhaar continues in two districts in Meghalaya

Voluntary enrolment of Aadhaar is currently going on in only two of the 11 districts of Meghalaya, official sources said today.

The enrolment in East Khasi Hills and West Khasi Hills districts resumed in May this year, four months after the exercise was put on hold after a contract ended with a company and to create awareness among the people of the state, they said.

"The enrolment has begun and it will be conducted according to the master plan of the district administration and availability of man power," Additional Chief Secretary P W Ingty, in charge of Census Operations and National Population Registration said.

He said, "we have started in East Khasi Hills and West Khasi Hills and very soon it will begin in other districts as well."

A Hyderabad based company has signed a one year contract with the state government in April this year and since May the enrolment has begun in both the districts.

In East Khasi Hills district, with a population of about eight lakh people, the enrolment has risen from 22 per cent in December last year to about 28 per cent now with 23 teams in the field, district Deputy Commissioner P S Dkhar said.

Dkhar said the district had sought 10 more teams to expedite the exercise in the district.

Several tribal-inhibited localities in the state capital that have expressed apprehensions earlier have come forward and wanted to initiate enrolment in their place, the deputy commissioner said.

He hoped that by the end of 2017, the enrolment in the district was expected to cross at least 50 per cent.

In West Khasi Hills district, with a population of nearly four lakh people, the enrolment has been undertaken by the common service centres and eight such centres have been notified, district Deputy Commissioner A Kembhavi said.

Until December last year, the Aadhaar enrolment in the state recorded less than 10 per cent as various pressure groups and the people opposed the bio-metric enrolment fearing that the data collected would be an invasion of privacy.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)