Nine lakh students in Bengal without Aadhaar cards

Kolkata: Around nine lakh students, who are aspirants for secondary and higher secondary examination, do not have their Aadhaar cards, revealed a survey conducted by the state school education department.

The state government has admitted that due to the absence of Aadhaar cards such students are often denied the benefits of different welfare schemes of the state government.

However, the state government has decided to overcome this problem by setting up 275 temporary cap offices throughout the state for Aadhaar card enrollment.

“Attempts are on to set up one such registration camp in each block. The students will be able to get their names enrolled there without any kind of fees. Students at all levels starting from primary, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary levels will be able to get their names enrolled there. The process has started from Wednesday,” said an official of the state education department.

The facilities will be extended to students coming from both state- run and private schools.

State education department sources that there had been a lapse on part of the government in conducting necessary awareness campaign drives to make the students and their guardians aware of the necessity of having Aadhaar cards.

“There are several development schemes of the state government exclusively for the student community. For enrolment under such schemes Aadhaar is necessary. But anyway, better late than never. We hope that our initiative for Aadhaar enrollment through these block-level temporary registration camps will be a major success,” a state education department official said.