The government is planning to increase the number of Aadhaar Seva Kendres – directly overseen by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) – from 88 currently to over 470 in the coming years.
It has released a proposal inviting large facility management firms to set up and operate these centres. The idea is similar to the Passport Seva Kendres, which is currently operated by tech major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and will have one or two large companies operating the centres. This will ensure process and security is taken care of, citizens have more touch points as requirements for Aadhaar updation/changes have significantly gone up while operators also can realise economies of scale, a government official told ET.
The expansion phase of setting up ASKs in more districts is starting now with plans to have 470 ASKs across many more districts. An RFP has been issued. “The services will be provided by the vendors who will be participating in the RFP, but we will have our control in the sense that we will have UIDAI-appointed managers in each of these centres (while the staff are employed by the vendors),” a second official aware of the plans told ET.
The need is sparked by the huge increase in the number of transactions which has touched around 750,000 updated on a daily basis while new enrolments on a per day basis are around 75,000 since the Aadhaar penetration has reached almost saturation levels in the country.
While the number of new enrolments has come down over the years as Aadhaar is near-universally adopted, there has been a “phenomenal rise” in the update process. The yearly requirement for updates three to four years ago was around 10-12 crores, which has now gone up to about 25 crores, the second official said.
The idea behind the expansion was to set up the additional centres in districts where the volumes are high, such as urban areas, the officials said.
In 2019, it was decided that the UIDAI should have its own Aadhaar Seva Kendras (ASK)s, rather than centres run by registrars under various agencies like state governments, bank branches, India Post, and public sector units. This would help to set the benchmark for quality and standards or services provided, being a guiding principle for other Aadhaar centres. A pilot was conducted in 72 cities with 88 ASKs. The results were encouraging, and people preferred these ASKs.
Apart from the ASKs, there are hundreds of non-UIDAI-run centres and different centres are designated for different purposes, such as child enrolment, demographic updates, address update, mobile update, and so on, depending on the specific permissions and restrictions imposed on them. The ASKs, on the other hand, provide all the services.
“Existing centres will continue as they are. For non-ASKs, expansion would be on a requirement basis, for instance, if requested by the state governments,” the second official said.
It has released a proposal inviting large facility management firms to set up and operate these centres. The idea is similar to the Passport Seva Kendres, which is currently operated by tech major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and will have one or two large companies operating the centres. This will ensure process and security is taken care of, citizens have more touch points as requirements for Aadhaar updation/changes have significantly gone up while operators also can realise economies of scale, a government official told ET.
The expansion phase of setting up ASKs in more districts is starting now with plans to have 470 ASKs across many more districts. An RFP has been issued. “The services will be provided by the vendors who will be participating in the RFP, but we will have our control in the sense that we will have UIDAI-appointed managers in each of these centres (while the staff are employed by the vendors),” a second official aware of the plans told ET.
The need is sparked by the huge increase in the number of transactions which has touched around 750,000 updated on a daily basis while new enrolments on a per day basis are around 75,000 since the Aadhaar penetration has reached almost saturation levels in the country.
While the number of new enrolments has come down over the years as Aadhaar is near-universally adopted, there has been a “phenomenal rise” in the update process. The yearly requirement for updates three to four years ago was around 10-12 crores, which has now gone up to about 25 crores, the second official said.
The idea behind the expansion was to set up the additional centres in districts where the volumes are high, such as urban areas, the officials said.
In 2019, it was decided that the UIDAI should have its own Aadhaar Seva Kendras (ASK)s, rather than centres run by registrars under various agencies like state governments, bank branches, India Post, and public sector units. This would help to set the benchmark for quality and standards or services provided, being a guiding principle for other Aadhaar centres. A pilot was conducted in 72 cities with 88 ASKs. The results were encouraging, and people preferred these ASKs.
Apart from the ASKs, there are hundreds of non-UIDAI-run centres and different centres are designated for different purposes, such as child enrolment, demographic updates, address update, mobile update, and so on, depending on the specific permissions and restrictions imposed on them. The ASKs, on the other hand, provide all the services.
“Existing centres will continue as they are. For non-ASKs, expansion would be on a requirement basis, for instance, if requested by the state governments,” the second official said.
