The Odisha Government will set up Aadhaar facilitation centres at hospitals and urban local bodies for the generation of the 12-digit unique identity at the time of birth and issue of birth certificates. This decision was taken in a State Level Unique Identification Implementation Committee meeting held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary A K Tripathy.
OCAC (Odisha Computer Application Centre) along with other departments were directed by A.K. Tripathy to devise age-group specific policies of live saturation enrolment. Tripathy further instructed to focus on Aadhaar generation of children in the age group of 0-5 and 5-18. “The meeting resolved to link the issue of birth certificates to Aadhaar registration,” said Odisha IT Secretary M Mishra.
A tentative target of January 2020 has been set for the roll-out of this initiative. To quicken the process, Anganwadi Centers and schools were directed to be actively associated with Aadhaar enrolment of the children.
A total of 4.41 crore Aadhaar numbers have been generated thus far, out of Odisha’s projected population of 4.58 crore in the age group of 18 and above, which amounts to roughly 93% of the projected population.
“Odisha has made appreciable progress in the implementation of Aadhaar enrolment. The enrolment achievement in Odisha has been more than 93 percent against all India average of around 90 percent,” said G Venugopal Reddy, Deputy Director-General Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).