Over 19 Lakh school students in Maharashtra do not have Aadhaar cards: Report

About 19.5 lakh students in Maharashtra don’t have Aadhaar cards and nearly 59 lakh students have problems related to Aadhaar in the student registration process, Systematic Administrative Reforms for Achieving and Learning by Students (SARAL) for government and aided and non-aided schools, a report by the state education department has revealed.

The data was collected ahead of the teacher approval process. The posts of teachers allotted to each school are decided based on the number of students enrolled. Students with valid Aadhaar cards are considered enrolled.

The data revealed that about 91 percent of students have an Aadhaar enrolment of which 18 percent is invalid. Of the total 2,33,13,762 children enrolled in government and aided schools across Maharashtra, 19,55,515 do not have Aadhaar cards, and out of the 2,13,58,247 children who have Aadhaar cards, 40,01,250 are invalid meaning their enrolment will not be counted, Indian Express reported.

The registration of students carried out by schoolteachers every year using the students’ Aadhaar numbers every year is mandatory for all government, aided, and unaided schools.

According to a senior official from the education department, an Aadhaar card is mandatory for students to avail of benefits like mid-day meals, textbooks, school uniforms and many more. From January 2023, students, who are registered on the portal with an Aadhaar card will only be able to avail of the mid-day meal scheme, Hindustan Times reported.

There is a possibility that these students will be deprived of these benefits due to Aadhaar-related issues.

As per the data, Pune district topped the list of districts without Aadhaar as around 3,09,671 students in the district do not have an Aadhaar card and there are errors in the details of 3,13,489 students.

This was followed by Thane district with 2,32,153 students not having Aadhaar and around 2,45,268 having errors in their Aadhaar details.

In Mumbai, it was found that 1,51,178 students of schools attached to the deputy director of education do not have Aadhaar, while 1,03,225 have Aadhaar with errors.

And for schools with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), 1,00,080 students do not have Aadhaar and 2,22,841 have errors in details.

Mahendra Ganpule, spokesperson, Maharashtra State Principals’ Federation, said the poor handling of Aadhaar card services has caused several errors in the names of students and parents, date of birth, address, and other personal information.

Meanwhile, the education department issued a circular on November 27, giving a deadline of December 3 to schools for making Aadhaar available to students not having unique identification cards.

Students with errors in their information have been given a deadline of December 10 to rectify the errors and students with invalid Aadhaar cards can update their data or obtain Aadhaar by December 20, as per the circular.