NEW DELHI: In what could be a case of taking things too far, the water resources ministry has made Aadhaar mandatory for school children to participate in a painting competition being organised by a central government body.The Central Ground Water Board CGWB ) under the water resources ministry announced on Monday a national-level painting competition for students of Classes 6, 7 and 8 and asked all participants to cite their Aadhaar/Aadhaar enrolment if they want to participate.“It is mandatory for all participants to have Aadhaar/Aadhaar enrolment,” the CGWB said while announcing the timeline, criteria and prize money for the 8th National Painting Competition on water conservation and pollution.The CGWB had, in fact, recently inserted a similar “mandatory” provision in its guidelines for the third national essay competition.Asked about the move, an official said, “It is based on a recent gazette notification regarding mandatory requirement of Aadhaar for participation in the competitions... The board had subsequently issued a public notice regarding it on its website.”Though the board’s website has both the links (gazette notification and public notice) on its main page, the contents were missing at the time of filing this report. It opened to a ‘server error’ page, saying “the resources you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable”.Nevertheless, the CGWB’s guidelines and the water resources ministry’s press statement on painting competition have the “mandatory” Aadhaar provision.