Denizens face hardships to make modifications in Aadhaar cards in Nellore

Nellore: City residents have been facing many problems for making any modifications in the data in the Aadhaar cards due to inadequate Aadhar centres. It has been necessitating them to alter names, phone numbers, change of address and other information and the process has become a problem for them with only a limited number of centres working at some selected banks.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, only two or three centres are functioning in city limits for making corrections in Aadhaar cards and the people have been visiting the centres in a large number violating the social distancing guidelines. Officials are saying they can do only 15-20 transactions per day and the huge crowds are creating unnecessary problems during banking hours.

The condition is going to be tougher soon with the launch of house sites distribution. Earlier, the Post Offices and Nationalised Banks were entrusted for enrolment of new cards and alterations in data in the existing cards. They started giving tokens and were delaying the process as they basically focus on other activities. Ultimately, it was taking 10-15 days for enrolment or updating the data in many towns. The UIDAI regional centre has to approve the request and issue a new card incorporating the changes.

Now, the situation changed due to the Covid-19 pandemic in the district. All commercial operations and community gathering activities were stopped and very few banks and post offices have been accepting the requests from the cardholders for any modifications.

In fact, several people were having no mobile phone or landline numbers during the initial days of Aadhar registration in 2010-11. Now, the mobile phone number is mandatory for any change in the data.

In case of change of address, cardholders have to approach the local Village Revenue Officer for approval and the request has to be submitted to the UIDAI regional office for recording changes through the designated centre.

An employee of a scheduled bank in the city said they were facing severe trouble with regular visitors to the branch for Aadhar modifications. He said they focus basically on the issues of the bank customers first and then take care of others.