UIDAI covers one-fourth of Uttar Pradesh, generates five crore Aadhaar numbers

NEW DELHI: The Unique Identification Authority of India ( UIDAI) today said it has enrolled one- fourth of the Uttar Pradesh population of 19.95 crore and generated more than five crore Aadhaar numbers.

"UIDAI crossed the five crore mark in Uttar Pradesh this week in its second phase, which was started for residents of the state through various non-state registrars (like Banks, Department of Post) and their enrollment agencies in March 2014," a press release said.

According to statement the UIDAI has been enrolling at present more than two-and-a-half lakh residents per day through over 5,000 enrollment kits deployed by 55 agencies in 69 districts of Uttar Pradesh.

The authority has said that it is taking adequate steps to deploy more enrollment kits to meet the targets of maximum enrollments at the earliest.

Widespread awareness has been generated to motivate the residents to approach their nearest enrollment centre to take up Aadhaar enrollment which is available free of cost.

With the 68 crore strong resident database, the Aadhaar identity platform has been serving users ranging from MNREGA workers, PDS, remittance and scholarship beneficiaries, etc.

All these beneficiaries are using their Aadhaar number to avail benefits through authentication. Aadhaar authentication is a novel and state-of-the-art method of enabling Aadhaar holders establish their identity in a full digital manner.

The previous UPA government had entrusted UIDAI, which issues unique identification numbers to residents, to start enrolments in four more states -- Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand -- in February 2014.

The new NDA government has also recently approved Phase V of the Aadhaar project which include enrollment by UIDAI in these four states.

There are around 40 crore people in these four states, which were earlier covered under the National Population Register (NPR) project of the Home Ministry.

In the backdrop of slow progress by NPR in these states, the government is pushing for the Aadhaar enrolments in these four states and other parts of the country.

UIDAI was established in 2009 to generate and assign unique identity numbers for residents of India.