Kolkata: West Bengal has topped among all others in Aadhaar-mobile linkage by providing connections to over 1.06 crore people across the state in the 2021-22 financial year. The BJP-ruled states like Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Assam, Karnataka, Uttarakhand lag far behind.
According to information provided by the Department of Posts, the Berhampore branch of Murshidabad has seen 16,74245 people linking their Aadhaar with mobile followed by Barasat. North 24-Parganas had around 1098399 linkages while Tamluk in East Midnapore stood third in this list with 785319 linkages.
Uttar Pradesh has witnessed over 49 lakh people linking their mobile numbers with Aadhaar while Karnataka has linked around 18 lakh. Gujarat has achieved over 6 lakh, Assam 31,211 and Uttarakhand 66320.
"The state government under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee has taken a number of social security schemes like Lakshmir Bhandar, Swasthya Sathi, Kanyashree etc where linking of Aadhaar with mobile is compulsory. This has contributed to such a high number of Aadhaar – mobile linkages in Bengal," a senior official of the state government said.
The West Bengal circle of the postal department was given a target of Rs 26.5 crore revenue in connection with IPPB (India Post Payment Bank) but the circle has achieved double the revenue by clocking Rs 55 crore."We have organised Duare Sarkar camps across the state and majority of the applications received in these camps were from beneficiaries of Swasthya Sathi and Lakshmir Bhandar. Women had made a beeline for availing the facilities of these schemes which involved linking mobile phones with Aadhaar," the official added.
The postal department has done the exercise from 2500 access points across the state. In this financial year, the Bengal circle will come up with 7,000 access points to fast track the process of Aadhaar enrollment of children.
The IPPB had launched a contest in which scooters were provided as incentives to the best-performing persons in connection with this work. As many as 226 scooters were awarded among which 189 were bagged by staff from the Bengal circle.