The ambitious, Nandan Nilekani-spearheaded project was launched in a grand function in Mysore on October 8 when the Dasara festival was underway. At the Mysore programme, enterprising state government and Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI) officials invited Yeddyurappa to enrol first among several hundred other citizens so he could receive the unique, universal and unambiguous number.
Accordingly, he underwent and iris and fingerprints scan. His photographs were taken. He would have been the first resident in the State to get the ID number two weeks after enrollment. It has been 20 days since Yeddyurappa’s biometric details were taken, but he is yet to receive the Aadhaar number. Government sources attribute this goof-up to a mechanical glitch which saw to it that the scanners failed to capture his ocular and fingerprint data. The botch-up was noticed after the Chief Minister left the venue.
Officials at the UIDAI headquarters said Yeddyurappa’s Aadhaar number could not be generated as they did not receive his biometric details.
Sources in the chief minister’s office in Bangalore said Yeddyurappa was partly to blame because he was in a tearing hurry to leave Mysore for the capital from where he was overseeing the hectic political activity that nearly cost him his chair. “His biometric details were captured in a hurry since he had to rush back to Bangalore,” the source said.
It is now learnt that UIDAI and state government officials have decided to request Yeddyurappa so his biometric details could be captured again.
UIDAI sources said taking citizens’ biometric data is the responsibility of the state government while the Authority’s job is to assign the ID numbers.