Over 40% in Meghalaya, Nagaland do not have Aadhaar cards 

In Meghalaya and Nagaland, over 40 per cent of the population do not have Aadhaar cards, according to latest Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) data. Aadhaar penetration in these States is just 58.61 per cent and 59.29 per cent. The saturation isn’t that great in Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Ladakh either, where only 79.29 per cent, 79.95 per cent and 77.79 per cent of the population have Aadhaar cards. On the contrary, four States and two union territories, including Delhi have a 100 per cent saturation. 

While Meghalaya’s position in this regard is the worst in the country, saturation is improving gradually. For instance, only 3.6 per cent of the State’s eligible population had an Aadhaar in 2016. The big jump happened between 2020 and 2021, when saturation percentage went up from 30.3 to 48.3. Sources close to the Meghalaya government told us that the government has initiatives underway and is aiming to get at least 70 per cent of the population registered by 2023. 

Nagaland, however, had 55 per cent saturation in 2017, which has moved up approximately 4 per cent since then. The saturation continued to be 57.2 per cent for two years, from 2018 to 2020, according to UIDAI. 

Why are the numbers so low? 

Multiple factors have affected Meghalaya’s Aadhaar saturation. Until recently, a lot of government schemes did not mandate the people of Assam and Meghalaya to have an Aadhaar. 

Also read

Adhere procedures to block data breach: CAG to UIDAI

Not linking PAN with Aadhaar by March 31 to attract penalty

In 2017, when the Aadhaar saturation in the State was just 14 per cent, then Chief Minister Mukul Sangma, said that he had not applied for an Aadhaar card. It is unclear if Sangma has got a card now. However, George Lyngdoh, an AITC MLA from the State whom we spoke to said that he got his card only in 2020. 

At the same time, Lyngdoh believes that numbers may improve soon. “When Aadhaar will be linked to subsidies, people will feel the requirement. When the need arises, people will pick it up. This also says that not a lot of people are availing central government subsidies and facilities,” he adds. In 2017, there was a huge opt-out campaign in the State, where people wrote to the UIDAI authorities, expressing their unwillingness to get an Aadhaar card, based on religious grounds. 

“A lot of people believed that it conflicted with their Christian beliefs. The same applies to Aadhaar too.” In Nagaland, there have been anti-Aadhaar campaigns about how it contradicts special provisions granted to the State under Article 371A of the Constitution. It exempts the State from the applicability of the Acts of Parliament in respect of the religious or social practices of the Nagas and their customary law and procedure. 

At the same time, the UIDAI numbers could be erroneous too, hints the latest Comptroller and Auditor General report. “There were instances of issue of Aadhaar cards with the same biometric data to different residents, indicating flaws in the de-duplication process and issue of Aadhaar cards on faulty biometrics and documents. Though UIDAI has taken action to improve the quality of the biometrics and has also introduced iris-based authentication features for enrolment for Aadhaar, the database continued to have faulty Aadhaar cards which were already issued,” it says. 

COMMENT NOW