The Telangana government embarked on a massive Aadhaar – National Population Register (NPR) updation exercise and seeding exercise across the State as early as 2015 and funds were released for this work till as late as September 2017.
Seeding in this context implies linking of Aadhaar numbers with NPR data.
“NPR updating and its seeding with Aadhaar in the NPR database was done on the basis of a notification from the Ministry of Home Affairs. As a part of the process, names were rectified and number of persons living in homes were corrected, and Aadhaar numbers added,” a source requesting anonymity said.
Enumeration was done for all erstwhile composite districts under the previous NPR format, which did not contain the now controversial questions such as those related to date and place of birth of the respondent’s parents.
A perusal of documents shows that the Telangana government issued budget release orders to the tune of approximately ₹8 crore in 2015. In 2016, the government sanctioned and released over ₹ 4.61 crore for updating NPR and seeding it with the Aadhaar. Another ₹ 6 crore only for data entry work pertaining to NPR updating in 2017. The funds were released for the erstwhile composite districts in the State with Mahbubnagar receiving the largest allocation.
Touching upon the issue of consent on linking Aadhaar with the NPR database, another official aware of the exercise, on the condition of anonymity, told The Hindu that Aadhaar numbers were taken from only those who were issued cards and were willing to share information voluntarily.
“When NPR was being updated, we sought Aadhaar numbers and added them only if they wished to share them with us,” the source said, adding that the seeding was done only for access to welfare schemes.
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