Also read: Mumbai: BMC finally issues appointment letters to aspiring teachers

BMC Education Officer Rajesh Kankal sent notices to headmasters this week. The notice said that the order asked for Aadhaar details at schools to be updated till December 5, but even after continuous follow-ups, they haven't taken the task seriously and this affected the Mumbai education department ranking at state level. If the work is not completed immediately disciplinary action will be taken for negligence.

Poll

Do you think the new ROB on Andheri-Ghatkopar Link Road will ease traffic?

Yes 33.33%

No 33.33%

Maybe 33.33%

Submit

View All In Poll

Mahendra Ganpule, spokesperson, Maharashtra State Principals’ Federation, said, “Teachers and headmasters have been helping out students and their parents in every way to get Aadhaar cards. If the state is pushing hard for it, then they must make Aadhaar mandatory for taking admission to schools.”

Another headmaster of a BMC school said, “We have been trying to get students Aadhaar cards as they are useful for them. But there are multiple issues like biometric fingerprint scanners that don’t work, several errors in the names of students and parents, dates of birth, addresses and other personal information. How can the government hold us responsible for students not having Aadhaar cards or errors in data on them?” 

‘Many excuses put forth’

Surekha Patil, ex-corporator and a member of the BMC education committee said, “We raised the Aadhaar card issue many times and requested the administration to at least hold Aadhaar card camps in schools for students. But every time they would come up with some excuse and told us that the school rooms cannot be allotted for Aadhaar camps. In Kandivli there is just one centre at the post office where only 30 cards are updated every day. How can teachers or headmasters be responsible for a student’s Aadhaar card?”

Kankal said, “We have sent notices to 100 school principals who had the lowest updated data. We started the drive on December 4, when the data of 1.44 lakh out of 7 lakh students from all aided, non-aided and BMC schools wasn’t updated. Now this number is down to 70,000.” He added, “Around 35,000 BMC school students' data hasn’t been updated yet but we haven’t received any information from schools on whether the students have or don’t have aadhaar cards. We have focused on data updating, errors and mismatch of data, which will be tackled afterwards.”

35,000
No. of BMC school students whose data hasn’t been updated yet