Union Minister of State in the Ministry of Electronics and IT, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Minister of State in the Ministry of Civil Aviation, General (Dr) VK Singh (Retd) to jointly inaugurate a newly constructed Aadhaar Seva Kendra (ASK) facility at Ghaziabad, UP on 21st November 2021.
This ASK has been established by UIDAI under the Ministry of Electronics and IT which plans to set up a total of 166 such kendras in 122 cities across India. This centre at Ghaziabad shall be 5th in state of UP after Agra, Lucknow, Prayagraj & Meerut, and soon the Government of India is set to launch centres at Gonda, Varanasi, Moradabad and Saharanpur.
Through ASK, the Government aims to provide all Aadhaar enabled services at a one stop Center to the citizens thereby ensuring ease of living and ease of doing business. It is also informed that the Narendra Modi Government has efficiently utilised the JAM trinity (Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile) in public service delivery and to empower the citizens. Around 313 central government schemes have so far been notified to use Aadhaar for leak-proof delivery of various social welfare benefits like PM-KISAN, PM Aawaas Yojana, PM Jan Arogya Yojana, PAHAL, MGNREGA, National Social Security Assistance Programme, PDS (in-kind benefits through Aadhaar authentication)etc. More than 250 state welfare schemes have also been notified to use Aadhaar. Clear provisions are there to ensure no denial of benefit in case of failure to authenticate. The savings made to public exchequer owing to use of Aadhaar and DBT, primarily due to weeding out of fake and duplicate beneficiaries, have been estimated to be to the tune of Rupees 1.78 lakh crores (as on Mar 2020; as per DBT Mission, Cabinet Secretariat)
JAM trinity has proved to be a game-changer and helped reaching out to the citizens living in the farthest corners of the country, during the coronavirus pandemic. Learning from India’s success story of leveraging Aadhaar in Governance, A lot of countries have shown active interest in understanding the Aadhaar experience and have reached out to UIDAI for the same. Some of these countries are Brazil, Sudan, Morocco, Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand, Maldives, Tanzania, Zambia etc.
UIDAI ‘Aadhaar Seva Kendra’ or ASK is a single stop destination for all Aadhaar related services for the residents. The ASKs offer dedicated Aadhaar enrolment and update services to residents in a state-of-the-art environment.
Aadhaar Seva Kendra offers a comfortable air-conditioned environment to residents. ASK is citizen centric and ASK managers are trained to reach out to residents and resolve issues on priority for children, senior citizens and specially abled persons. ASKs are being run in association with Smart Chip Pvt. Ltd.
Token system is implemented for crowd management which provides efficient service to residents. An Online Appointment System is available for the ASK which helps in saving time for citizens and eases out crowd at the centre. Residents who have online appointment are served at specified window. There is a token counter at the entrance which provides tokens to walk-in residents on first come first serve basis. A help desk is functional at the entrance for providing support to residents and addressing their queries.
Verifiers have been deployed to check documents that are uploaded at time of enrolment and update of Aadhaar. This ensures that data quality is maintained during each transaction. The payments system is through cash and digital payment is promoted through google pay/ paytm / UPI etc. ASK can accommodate around 80 persons inside while waiting for their turn.
ASKs are operational from 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM on all seven days of the week and are closed only on public holidays. While Aadhaar Enrolment is free, a nominal charge of Rs. 50/- is payable for demographic update and Rs.100/- for biometric update with or without demographic update.
RKJ/M
