E Arun & Tarun Kartick
Port Blair, Mar 12: The residents of Andaman and Nicobar Islands recently received their Resident Identity Cards which contain their biometric as well as residential address.
This card was issued to tackle the problems to establishing identity of Individuals. Many of the cards issued to the Public contain serious mistakes in terms of their personal details.
Andaman Sheekha had reported about one of the serious mistakes committed by the authorities in card of one of the residents of Rangat in which his father’s name was stated as ‘Port Blair’ and his name was changed to his father’s name.
When Andaman Sheekha contacted the authorities of the Directorate of Census to clarify the facts behind these mistakes, one of the officers, who was not ready to comment on the record, put the entire blame on public saying that the Individuals are the only one responsible for mistakes in their card.
He further informed that the list of the details of an Individual was displayed in Patwari Office of his own region for any correction in details and the directorate also got many corrections from the General Public which was then corrected and sent to Electronic Corporation Limited, Hyderabad for printing. The Individual who had not corrected their details got their details printed in their cards as it is.
When Andaman Sheekha questioned the authorities on how to correct the mistakes, he informed that in near future Aadhar Number will be linked to the Resident Identity Card and during the linking of the Aadhar with the RIC one can correct his or her details and then the corrected details will be considered.
The authorities further informed that after some time centres will also be opened in several places permanently for such corrections and one can also approach such centres to correct their details. But he neither gave any time frame nor any official comments regarding this entire issue.
It seems that for time being Islanders must learn to live with all the mistakes in their Resident Identity Card and mistaken identity.
… Individual who had not corrected their details got their details printed in their cards as it is… If this ir-responsible comment has been uttered by a lower rung babu, I am ready to condone it. But if this is the official version of the authority concerned, then I am constrained to remind them that they are being paid to capture, process and upload correct data.
Blaming the public for the data uploaded by paid officials only goes on to show the incompetence of the person concerned.