The Times of India          30.11.2013

KMC Aadhaar camps put off indefinitely

KOLKATA: If you have not registered for Aadhaar yet, you might end up paying the entire amount for each gas cylinder after January 31. While the petroleum ministry has set that date for enrollment of LPG subscribers across India, the much-awaited Aadhaar registration camps for cooking gas subscribers in Kolkata have been put on hold.

The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), which was chosen as the nodal agency for organizing special Aadhaar camps, on Friday received a Union home ministry note asking it to put the camps on hold till further order. The KMC was supposed to conduct the camps at 81 venues across the city, the spaces for which were supposed to have been arranged by LPG distributors.

KMC joint municipal commissioner Sristidhar Santra told reporters on Friday about the camps being put on hold. However, the Union home ministry has approved of holding special camps for LPG subscribers in Cooch Behar. "These camps will be held in Cooch Behar from December 14 to January 21. We may need to organize the camps in Kolkata based on the result of that," a KMC official said on Friday.

Holding the camps was never an easy task for the KMC as the civic officials engaged in the task failed to even gather data on the LPG subscribers who have already enrolled for Aadhaar. Sources said that though the number of cooking gas subscribers in Kolkata has crossed 13 lakh, not more than 50% have been covered in the first phase of Aadhaar registration.

"But we wanted to bring every subscriber under the mandatory subsidy form. That was an uphill task for want of infrastructure," said a KMC official.

Neither were the LPG distributors prepared for the big event. That was the reason why the KMC first postponed the camps from November 21 to December 2. Now, it has been postponed indefinitely.

TOI had reported on November 5 about the home ministry's decision to defer enrollment camps at LPG centres since chief minister Mamata Banerjee had called for a rethink on the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) for LPG scheme. On November 1, Mamata had demanded that the petroleum ministry's decision to go ahead with the scheme be revoked since the Supreme Court has ruled that Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory for accessing public services and subsidies.

But the petroleum ministry, as it appears, is determined to push the scheme, leaving lakhs of LPG subscribers in the lurch, since there has been no confirmation from the ministry yet whether it would extend its January 31 deadline, said a senior KMC official working for Aadhaar scheme in Kolkata.