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RAIPUR: Harassed and unable to get corrections in his Aadhaar data , an octogenarian from the state capital has written to the Prime Minister's Office and CEO of the UIDAI seeking exemption to super senior citizens from the agony of maintaining Aadhaar.

Amid calls from telecom companies for linking his Aadhar to the phone numbers, an 81-year-old retired Class I officer, SM Agarwal in state capital is worried that his mobile service would soon be deactivated, as it could not be linked to Aadhaar. Agrawal had a harrowing time running from pillar to post for the past three years to get corrections in his father's name and date of birth.

If they can't make corrections why are they forcing elderly to use the Aadhaar mandatorily, he asked. A Parkinsons patient, he has met several agents and submitted documents of proof multiple times, only to return empty handed as there is a difficulty is getting his thumb and finger impressions.

He writes, he is not the only one, but, there are several elderly who face difficulty in getting finger prints impressions. "I approached Choice centres, paid them fees, were promised for rectification and was called again and again for biometric data, which I was later told was rejected," Agrawal said.

I was told to visit Municipal Corporation office, and went there but had no success. Agrawal also approached the Lok Sewa centre where he was told this problem was common with applicants of your age.

Agrawal said that he has written in detail to the PMO, information and technology department, UIDAI and Airtel apprising them of the problem. In his letter, he requested that super senior citizens should not be tortured and should be exempted from maintaining the Aadhar card as the systems lead to harassment. Voter ID, passport or PAN card should be considered sufficient proof.

While biometric authentication is the very base of Aadhar, the incorrect entries, wrongly captured fingerprints, means a lot of hardship for citizens, mainly the elderly. For rural India, it is a major hurdle and risk of being left out of the welfare schemes. It was a national headline when few villages in Chhattisgarhs Gariyaband district reported of hundreds of Aadhar cards having same birth dates as January 1. Administration had to set up several camps to get the rectification done.

Alex Paul Menon, CEO ChIPS said, "It might be a special case and if it requires a special intervention, we would ensure that the human resource available to us would be able to solve the issue. If it's not resolved on local level, we will take up the matter with higher authorities. As the whole system of Aadhar related matter totally depends upon online and biometric validation, such cases surface once in a while."

