By Varsha Priyadarshini & Chitra Rawat

In the first part of the Aadhaar series, we looked at the indisputable importance of Aadhaar in India and the institutional bottlenecks that citizens face when accessing the system. In this issue, we zoom in on the experiences of migrant workers in navigating the Aadhaar ecosystem. Additionally, we also lay focus on the challenges faced by different service providers in enabling effortless service delivery.

We bring to you stories primarily from the Shivpuri district of Madhya Pradesh - a source region, i.e the place of origin for migrant workers. Shivpuri district covers almost 10,000 sq km of the area and is one of the largest district in Madhya Pradesh. It comprises 7 blocks/tehsils, namely Shivpuri, Kolaras, Pohri, Khaniyadhana, Badarwas, Pichhore, Kolaras, and Narwar. 

Chalo Network’s strong presence and advocacy in Khaniyadhana and Pichhore have helped workers in getting their Aadhaar cards updated through different channels, which include digital service providers, local bank branches, and local Aadhaar Seva Kendras.

However, providing ground operations and last-mile delivery services is not easy and our field team routinely navigates various challenges to ensure that workers can avail their Aadhaar services. Some of these challenges are discussed in detail below.

After completing his graduation in 2019, Mukul (name changed) started a Common Service Centre (CSC) in his village in Khaniyadhana Block of Shivpuri District. This is one of the 20 odd CSC centres in the block covering an area of 1292 sq kms. CSCs are one of the largest Government approved delivery channels for providing government, private and social sector services to rural populations in India (currently estimated to be over 3.74 lakh). 

Relying on his tech-savviness and ability to work for longer hours, Mukul’s CSC soon became one of the more prominent CSCs in Khaniyadhana. He gained the trust of the local community to provide them with a wide range of financial, documentation, welfare and identity services; such as Cash Withdrawal, Bill Payments, E-Shram, Vaccination registrations and Ayushman Bharat card registrations. Realising that CSCs are the most fundamental infrastructure for increasing digital and financial access of the rural populations, Mukul was glad to be a part of the Digital India story.

However, one of the key areas where Mukul hit a roadblock in providing services to his customers was in the case of Aadhaar. As a CSC, he is not authorised to perform biometric-related updates or demographic updates. He could only assist his customers in booking slots online for Aadhaar enrollment and inform them about the correct documentation required for each update.

Aadhaar correction facilities are only available at select authorised centres - the nearest centre being 15kms away from Mukul’s village. He notes that his customers often forgo a day’s work to travel to these centres to get their corrections made. Sometimes, Mukul assists his customers to travel to the facilities, in case they are highly unaware of the process.

Post lockdown, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the statutory authority established to implement Aadhaar, permitted over 20k CSCs to serve as Banking Corresponds (BCs). These are permitted to update Aadhaar details (demographic updates) of their customers at their respective facilities. Mukul’s CSC was not one of them.

Even those BC agents who were extended this facility complained that many of the update applications did not get approved or reflected in the customer’s Aadhaar cards (as observed by our Shivpuri field team). Eventually, many customers stopped trusting these agents with demographic or biometric-related updates.

The UIDAI’s failure in following up on its recent policies to expand authorisation services to village-level entrepreneurs like CSCs or BC agents adds to the distrust among this community to be further associated with the Aadhaar service delivery ecosystem. Despite them being a more accessible point of contact for the rural population.

The policy move to restrict the number of agencies which can carry out an Aadhaar update stems from the need to stop fraud and faulty Aadhaar Cards. But instead of resolving the problem, the solution causes more hurdles. If the government cannot trust the CSCs with such crucial information, one would expect the government-appointed Aadhar service centres to run more efficiently and be accessible to the public. However, this is hardly the case in rural Madhya Pradesh.

In the Khaniyadhana block covering over 1292 km, there are 3 Aadhaar service centres, out of which only 2 are currently functional. One is a regional rural bank - Madhyanchal Gramin Bank (MGB) and the other is the local Post Office.

The on-field assessment suggests that the bank has sublet the process to a third-party vendor, who functions from within the bank’s premises. They are local-level entrepreneurs who are equipped with the infrastructure to provide the correction facilities and are funded by the bank. 

However, due to increased traffic of customers and less manpower, the number of updates ranges between 25-40 per day. Moreover, the centres are open for only 4-5 hours a day. These centres are also located in the core areas of the district, and as a result, the facility is accessible for people who live nearby; communities in the interior areas have to travel far and wide to access these centres.

A new development noted by the field team was the change in the category of valid documentation needed for availing of Aadhaar correction facilities. In the absence of any documentation to establish proof of identity, date of birth or address, UIDAI in 2019, enabled citizens to get certificates authorised by functionaries like MP/MLA/Tehsildar, Gazetted Officer, Head of educational institutions, Councillor or head of an orphanage, or head of village Panchayat. 

However, the rules on-ground have been made quite rigid as Service Centres only accept official documents like a coloured voter id, PAN card, 10th Board certificate or Date of Birth certificate as a valid form of identity proof.

This creates a lot of pressure on both the customers and the verification authority, especially in rural areas where documentation and literacy are already meagre - 62.55%, which is way below the national average of 74.04%. Shivpuri also comes under one of the most financially excluded districts of the country, with an average score of 27.6 out of 100 as of 2016, according to CRISIL Inclusix, a financial inclusion index.

Thus, from a service provider point of view, there are many pain points such as the lack of Aadhaar Correction authorisation to CSCs, an inadequate number of Aadhaar service centres in rural regions, incomplete implementation of newer policies etc which need to be solved, in order to create a more robust Aadhaar experience for both the customers and the service providers.

Taking into account the issues flagged above, we narrate the experience of one of Mukul’s customers - Manoj, a migrant worker who travels to Delhi for work. 

Before travelling, he wanted to update his last name on the Aadhaar card, but because there was no CSC nearby, he had to try with the local Aadhaar Seva Kendra in Khaniyadhana. There was only one functional Aadhaar Seva Kendra nearby, but it also remained closed most of the time.

Our Chalo supervisor helped Manoj get a token from the local Aadhaar Seva Kendra, for which they had to wait in a queue early in the morning from 7 AM to 10 AM. After standing in line for 3 hours, they got an appointment for Manoj for the day after. There were also 4 other customers with our supervisor, who had to get similar updates done.

Two days later, Manoj went to the Aadhaar Kendra (this time alone) and the operator finally started the update process. At the OTP validation step, the operator realised that Manoj’s present mobile number is not linked to his Aadhaar. Hence, the first update they did was to get it linked and then proceeded to do the required demographic update.

After a few days, once the update was done, the supervisor, as part of the protocol, checked if Manoj’s Aadhaar was linked with the correct mobile number. They entered the mobile number on the UIDAI website and realised that the OTP for Manoj did not go to his present mobile number, instead the last four digits displayed on the screen were not from his mobile number. 

On further enquiry, the supervisor realised that the Aadhaar Seva Kendra operator had connected the Aadhaar cards to his mobile number instead of linking to his customers. This increased the chances of the operator using the customer’s Aadhaar card for different purposes, hence putting the customer at higher risk of fraud.

The issue was raised with the Chalo team and its field partner organisations. The team tried to find another reliable Aadhaar correction facility in the vicinity. The Madhyanchal Gramin Bank (as previously mentioned) proved to be a trustworthy centre. However, they could only do limited updates a day (25), which was also one of the reasons why the centre was not chosen in the first place. 

Manoj now had to wait a day or two to get his token number. Our field supervisor assisted Manoj throughout the entire process and ensured that his updates were done correctly.

Such instances point to the nature of malpractice in Aadhaar Service Centres, which are rampant across the country. It requires tremendous effort, time and money to find a reliable service centre, acquire a token and get the update done. Had it not been for the supervisor, customers like Manoj might have to pay a heavy price for merely wanting to update their Aadhaar.

There exists a diverse range of stories about accessing and providing Aadhaar services in India - each with a different kind of challenge. On one hand, one cannot overlook the risks of fraud and malpractices that Aadhaar Service Centres commit to bypass Aadhaar regulations. On the other hand, the inability of easily accessible service providers to be fully authorised to do Aadhaar updates makes for an inconvenient system - wherein the physical infrastructure/architecture to keep up with increased Aadhaar update applications is severely lacking. The UIDAI’s approach of limiting authorisation access without providing a robust mechanism to counter fraud is making the system even more unreasonably difficult to access than it already is, especially for the more vulnerable sections.

Stay tuned for the third part of our ‘Mission Updating Aadhaar’ Series to be out next month!