Aadhar should have names of father, husband for women: Ex-CEC

CHENNAI: Former Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami today said the Aadhar card issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India should include the names of a woman's father and husband, in order to avoid confusion stemming from different surnames.

"Married women generally use their husband's name as their surname. But in PAN cards they ask for their father's name. So, the surname in the PAN card will differ from other documents. There is a need for standardising this. The Aadhar card should do this by including both a woman's father's name and her husband's name," said Gopalaswami on the sidelines of a function here.

Asked whether he would make a formal suggestion to the UIDAI authorities, he said, "I am planning to make one".

The former CEC also noted that most south Indians, especially women, had problems in getting their surnames right in the supporting documents like PAN cards, passports and voters identity card.

"Most of the documents will not have the expansion of the initials in the documents. The methodology of writing documents should be changed especially for people from Tamil Nadu, since they don't use surnames but initials," he said.

Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique identification (UID) number being issued by UIDAI to all Indian residents. Aadhar, as of now, asks only for a woman applicant's father's or husband's name and not both.

The UID number is stored in a centralised database and linked to the basic demographics and biometric information -- photograph, ten fingerprints and iris -- of each individual.