Over 2 lakh students in Maharashtra fail Aadhaar validation, no denial of benefits: Govt

2.08 lakh school students in Maharashtra have failed Aadhaar validation while 6.80 lakh are yet to be validated, Minister of State (MoS) Jayant Choudhary told Lok Sabha in a written reply, while addressing a question related to discrepancies in Aadhaar Cards of students enrolled in government and semi-government schools, particularly in the state.

Of 1,84,89,092 school students in Maharashtra, Aadhaar Card has not been provided to 4,55,263, as per the official Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) Plus data, the education minister informed.

Among the common reasons for failure of Aadhaar validation are mismatch in name, spelling, and date of birth, non-updation of Aadhaar Card, missing date of birth in Aadhaar Card, errors while registering on state SARAL portal, discrepancy in gender etc.

However, the minister emphasized that no student has been deprived of benefits from scholarships or schemes including centrally sponsored ones such as Samagra Shiksha and PM-POSHAN, despite the anomalies.

Aadhaar Card update

The Maharashtra school education department has deployed two Aadhaar kits in each block for new enrollment and corrections in the cards. The Aadhaar update process is ongoing at block and cluster levels, the education ministry added.

Centre has also assured that it is continuously reviewing the progress and guiding the states for rectifying the issues through Project Appraisal Board (PAB) meetings and quarterly meetings.