The Aadhaar Card registration office of Margao has been functioning with utter lack of resources and efficiency since its inception some years back. Every passing day has become an ordeal for the people coming to the office to register for Aadhaar or other jobs. Sprawling lines and chaos has become a routine for the staff and the people coming to get their jobs done.
In a recent move the use of Aadhaar card was made mandatory for all central and state government subsidies and benefits which require funding from the central exchequer with the Centre notifying the unique identity (UID) regulations.
The Aadhaar has over 105 crore enrolments and six lakhs are added daily to this registry. However, many still remain to be enrolled because of the factors like technical errors and also the rural population where the reach is lower than that of the towns. With most registered under the scheme it has given an advantage of easy seeding of schemes with Aadhaar.
But the situation at Aadhaar Card Centre in Margao is not that very encouraging for the people coming with hope. The Aadhaar card office above Coffee Day in Comba is seeing a surge of 100’s of people at the door which has been getting pretty unmanageable for the staff there. The office handles people who come for Income Tax returns, E-TDS, GST and various other things. The office, which has a carpet area of only 12X12, makes people fill into it like a pickle jar. There is no place for people to enter and sometimes even to step inside. The people coming to the centre are mostly the downtrodden and also the seamen and their families who may have missed the registration for the first time.
However, the same story continues every day. The queue on Tuesday inflated to nearly about 150 people waiting inside and outside the office. There are four staff in the office who handle the entire daily load of the two to 300 odd applicants. The office is dealing with services of Aadhaar card, Pan Card and others.
Some of the people coming to the centre spoke to Herald and said they have been coming twice and thrice to the office to get their jobs done. However, every day they have to face the same apathy. “I have come here in the morning and I was welcomed with the traffic jam and then the parking problem in Comba. I finally found a spot to park and made my way to the office. There was no place even to stand in this office and this is a daily story,” said Josine Cardozo.
People from villages as distant as Varca, Mobor come to this office but have been forced to return without getting their work done.
A seaman, who was at the office for the Aadhaar related work, said: “I came here with my family but there was no room to breathe.” The people aggrieved by the people problems have suggested that the Government appoints more agents to handle the situation at the office in Margao. A suggestion to have a bigger place for the office has also been made.
With the Government introducing the compulsion of the Aadhaar for all Central and State Government benefit schemes, things are likely to get worse in the future. The people have requested for the resolution of the problem soon.
