A survey conducted by the West Bengal School Education Department revealed that around nine lakh students do not have Aadhaar cards. These students are aspirants for the secondary and higher secondary examinations.

The state government admitted that due to the absence of Aadhaar cards, such students were often denied the benefits of different welfare schemes. However, the government has decided to overcome this problem by setting up 275 temporary cap offices throughout the state for Aadhaar card enrollment, as per a report by IANS.

“Attempts are on to set up one such registration camp in each block. The students will be able to get their names enrolled there without any kind of fees. Students at all levels starting from primary, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary levels will be able to get their names enrolled there. The process has started from Wednesday (September 20),” said an official of the state education department.

The facilities will be extended to students from both state-run and private schools. Sources from the education department admitted that there had been a lapse on the part of the government in conducting necessary awareness campaign drives to make the students and their guardians aware of the necessity of having Aadhaar cards.

“There are several development schemes of the state government exclusively for the student community. For enrollment under such schemes, Aadhaar is necessary. But anyway, better late than never. We hope that our initiative for Aadhaar enrollment through these block-level temporary registration camps will be a major success,” another education department official said, as per IANS.