Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) refused to renew its Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with CSCs saying, “In view of the enormous number of complaints of corruption and enrollment process violations against Aadhaar enrollment/update centres under CSC e-Gov, it may not be possible to extend/renew MoU with CSC.”
Dinesh Kumar Tyagi, chief executive officer, CSC e-Governance Services, strongly refuted the allegations and said CSCs have nothing to do with the leak of the Aadhaar data
Tyagi told ,the move by UIDAI to not renew the MoU may lead to a job loss for 36,000-48,000 people as 12,000 centres have been rendered close because of this.
One centre employs about 3-4 people and every centre has incurred an investment of Rs 1.5 lakh on buying of equipment — computers, biometric machines, tablets and others, he said.
UIDAI now plans to make Aadhaar enrollment centres at banks and post offices, apart from government premises.
Of late, there have been reports of data leakage, which prompted UIDAI to take many steps to secure the data.
Both UIDAI and CSC e-Governance Services are part of the of IT and electronics ministry.
Tyagi said the government needs to either compensate these people who have made investment or help them with an alternative.
There are over 250,000 CSCs across the country, of which 150,000 are rural and the rest are in urban areas.
Apart from Aadhaar-related services, CSCs also enable people to access government services online such as train tickets, birth certificates, online submission of various forms and bills. These centres also train people in using digital services and also offer skill-related courses. It is a critical part of the government’s Digital India programme.
Out of 1.19 billion Aadhaar numbers generated by UIDAI, around 180 million had been generated by enrollment centres at CSCs and don’t include the updation numbers.
