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India: Govt official helps differently abled woman get Aadhaar card

Guntur - Woman's sister sends distress message to official who responds and helps her complete the procedure for the card

For Shanti Lakshmi, a resident of Nadikudi village in Guntur district in Andhra Pradesh, it was tough convincing officials of her inability to get her differently abled sister enrolled at the Aadhaar enrollment centre, thus depriving them of various government benefits.

Finally on Thursday night, she sent a distress message on WhatsApp to Vivek Yadav, the district collector. And the response was immediate. Hours later, on Friday morning, Ramavat Venkateswara Naik, the village in-charge visited her home to get the sister enrolled. When he found Boddu Chinna, her 39-year-old sister in a difficult situation and unable to travel, he took her in his car to the nearest Aadhaar centre.

Chinna could of course not use her fingers as they were numb. The government officials then captured her Iris image and completed the procedure quickly, ensuring that she would soon get an Aadhaar card and access all the welfare schemes.

“My differently abled sister shares the same enrolment number as mine, and all my attempts to get her enrolled were futile, as her 10 fingers have become numb,” Lakshmi was quoted in a newspaper. “

The personnel at Aadhaar Centre have turned us away saying that porting could not be done as they could not take biometric fingerprints due to her condition. It has been an ordeal for the last two years, and so I decided to write a mail to the collector.”