Visakhapatnam: Now, Aadhaar services at your locality

Visakhapatnam: In what appears to be a major relief to those who are in need of new Aadhaar cards apart from correction and updation, the facility can now made accessible in their own neighbourhood.

The initiative of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), Visakhapatnam centre, aims at making issue of new card, updation and alteration convenient for the people.

A temporary centre will be set up in an area or a colony if UIDAI gets more than 50 applications to establish the facility.

Currently, the UIDAI's Aadhaar office is located at Dwarakanagar, first lane and it is open from 7 am to 7 pm from Monday to Saturday and 8 am to 6 pm on Sundays. To make it convenient for the disabled, the centre has a wheelchair facility. Following Covid-19 protocols, seating arrangement for 50 applicants is provided at a time.

From eight systems to 20 and from 16 staff members to 32, the centre has recently been upgraded from 'B' to 'A' category. Applicants can update any service and get it done within 30 minutes at the facility. "We conduct camps in colonies when we receive a minimum of 50 enrolment requests. Applicants who want to update corrections or request for new cards can approach our grievance cell or help desk," says Polavarapu Sreehari, centre manager of Aadhaar Seva Kendra.

At present, in Andhra Pradesh there are only two 'A' category centres. While one is in Vijayawada, the other is in Visakhapatnam. Earlier, the Vizag centre had an access to enrol maximum 800 applications a day. With increased manpower and system capacity, the centre can now serve close to 1,500 applicants per day. New enrolment, name and address change, change in the date of birth, updating fingerprint and iris are some of the services available at the centre. Very recently, the facility completed over one lakh enrolments.

Those who are in need of such service can approach the office either by booking an online slot by logging on to ask1.uidai.gov.in or by visiting the centre.