Shillong, Sep 24: UIDAI Deputy Director General Ngachan Zimik has flagged key gaps in Aadhaar coverage in Meghalaya and called for urgent action on child enrolment and biometric updates.
Presenting the progress report at the state-level UIDIC meeting chaired by Chief Secretary Dr. Shakil P. Ahammed, Zimik said while enrolment has shown an upward trend, focus is needed on 0-5 year children through Birth Registration Based Aadhaar Enrolment (BRBAE) at district hospitals using Birth Registration Numbers.
He urged the Education Department to launch special Mandatory Biometric Update (MBU) drives, linking MBU status with the UDISE+ portal to identify students needing updates. He asked the state to ensure maximum utilisation of enrolment kits to accelerate MBU coverage.
“Updated biometrics are essential for students to avoid difficulties in authentication for government schemes, scholarships and competitive exams like NEET, JEE and CUET,” Zimik said.
He also highlighted low-saturation districts, need to digitise state documents with QR codes for verification, expanding Aadhaar authentication for service delivery, and promotion of the new Aadhaar App (One Family-One App) for offline and QR-based verification, biometric lock/unlock and onboarding of verification entities for hotels, hospitals and age verification.
The meeting was attended by UIDAI Director Lt. Col. Swapan Kumar Saxena, Commissioner & Secretary Pravin Bakshi, Secretary Swapnil Tembe and senior officials.
Chief Secretary Ahammed called for coordinated efforts between departments and UIDAI Regional Office, Guwahati to achieve targets in a time-bound manner.
