From pillar to post office

The Post Offices (POs) have been instructed to add more counters to handle the rush of people seeking to obtain registration forms for Aadhaar at the post offices in the City.
“The response from people has been overwhelming, but it is beyond the capacity of post offices to handle at the moment,” says Ashok Dalwai, Deputy Director General of UID Authority of India (UIDAI), Bangalore regional office.

“Now only post offices and a few banks are doing it. In a month, the government will open registration on large-scale which will solve the problem,” Dalwai says.
For the time being however, the problems at the post offices continue unabated. “Post offices alone cannot handle the rush. So, people will have to wait till the State government opens its centres,” says Ashok.

The government is expected to operate from around 400 centres in the City, including BangaloreOne centres, catering to a large number of people.

Chaos continued on the second day at the General Post Office (GPO), with limited supply of application forms and no facility to handle the crowd that is pouring in.

Deccan Herald had reported on Sunday about the prevailing confusion and lack of arrangements. However, the situation remained the same crippling the pace of the process.

According to the instructions, downloaded forms could be submitted. But those who appeared with them were sent back on the grounds that downloaded forms are being misused. Apparently, some shops around have been selling downloaded and photocopied forms.

On Monday morning, the office had distributed photocopied application forms. Applicants who came with the filled forms were told that photocopied forms are not accepted anymore.

“I got this copy at 9.30 am from GPO and was asked to come back before 6 pm. I returned at 3 pm to avoid the rush, but now I am told that photcopied copies will no longer be accepted,” said Felix Royan from Lingarajapuram.

“It takes around 15 minutes per person for verification of documents and scanning of fingerprints and Iris, and not more than 40 applications can be processed in a day,” said an official.

Therefore, only 50 application forms will be issued a day, the official said. But more than a hundred people returned disappointed from the office since no forms will be
issued till Thursday.

“There is no clarity whatsoever. Tell us what documents to bring. We can’t travel a long distance everyday for this,” fumed M R V Seshan, a retired Coffee Board officer.