After achieving the milestone of 100 percent Aadhar saturation in the state, Himachal Pradesh has started Aadhar enrolment for newborn babies in health institutions.

Himachal government has started a pilot project for Aadhar Enrolment of newborn babies and the facility would be provided in three districts, Shimla, Hamirpur and Kullu in first phase. Later, all the health institutions of the state would be covered under the program.

From now on, the birth registration of newborn babies would be linked with Aadhar card after which the process for enrolment of newborn baby would be started.

To enroll the newborn for Aadhar Card, the state government is providing tablets and biometric machines to National Rural Health Mission employees, deployed in health instituions in these three districts. These workers have already been trained for purpose.

Confirming about the decision, Chief Medical Officer, Shimla, Dr Neeraj Mittal told The Statesman, the government has prepared a software for the purpose. “In first step, verification of Aadhar Card of mother and father of the baby would be done through biometric machines. This information would be linked with the birth registration card of the baby,” he said.

Dr Mittal said after adding the information, the picture of the newborn baby would be uploaded on the software and the parents would get confirmation message for Aadhar enrolment.

“The parents of the baby would get the Aadhar Card within 15-20 days but this would be valid till the child attains the age of 5 years,” he said, adding that the parents would have to update the Aadhar card after that.

It is worthwhile to mention here that Himachal Pradesh had achieved 100 percent Aadhar saturation out of current population of 2015. Aadhaar Card have been generated for 72, 52,880 residents in the state and with this, Himachal had become the 6th state in the country to achieve 100 percent Aadhaar saturation after Delhi, Telangana, Haryana, Punjab and Chandigarh.

The state government has also deployed Anganwari workers to cover 0-5 age group in the state to maintain 100 percent saturation and have provided them tablets.

The government has also setup 240 Permanent Enrolment Centres (PECs) biometric updation which is mandatory for child after attaining the age of 5 years and 15 years. In addition, 22 Aadhaar Mobile Vans are also operational to cover any left out Citizen or elderly person in the remote areas of the state.