Making Aadhaar must will make poor suffer: CM Mamata Banerjee

Kolkata: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday lashed out at the Centre for making the Aadhaar mandatory for opening bank accounts, claiming it would make the poor sufferer the worst.

“The poorest of the poor, the marginalised people, will be the worst sufferers if #Aadhaar is made mandatory unilaterally,” Ms Banerjee tweeted. She further said that there were privacy issues linked to the Aadhaar and the Centre must ensure security of the citizens of the country before making it mandatory. “#Aadhaar has serious issues about privacy. Govt must not make it mandatory before 100 per cent coverage is achieved,” she tweeted.

Interestingly, overall Aadhaar enrolment in Bengal is 92 per cent, higher than the national figure of 88.06 per cent. The district-wise Aadhaar enrolment report upto June 4 states that Bankura (89.9), Burdwan (85.9), Birbhum (86.7), South Dinajpur (84.3), Darjeeling (82.7), Howrah (87.09), Hooghly (91.2), Jalpaiguri (82.78), Coochbehar (89.08), Kolkata (79.67), Malda (87.07), Murshidabad (86.52), Nadia (84.88), North 24 Parganas (80.84), Purulia (85.16), South 24 Parganas (94.29) and North Dinajpur (77.43) are the states that have made reasonably good enrollment.

West Midnapore has recorded only 19.64 per cent Aadhaar enrolment while East Midnapore has recorded 36.20 per cent where enrollment has been poor.