Chandigarh, Jun 21 (IANS): To increase Aadhaar coverage of children up to 5 years, Punjab Chief Secretary Vijay Kumar Janjua on Wednesday directed that the Aadhar enrollment of children should also be done at Aam Aadmi clinics across the state.

While chairing the meeting of the UID implementation committee, Janjua said that Punjab ranks fifth in India in terms of Aadhaar coverage.

Now the focus is on building Aadhaar for children where the coverage is only 44 per cent. He said that as many as 580 Aam Aadmi clinics have been opened by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann "to provide better health facilities to the residents of the state, in which a large number of people are getting their treatment".

Seeing the large number of patients coming to the clinics, it has now been decided to provide the facility of Aadhaar enrollment there also to increase the coverage of children, the Chief Secretary added.

He also directed the Department of School Education and Social Security and Women and Child Development to speed up the Aadhaar enrollment process for children.

Secretary Food and Civil Supplies Gurkirat Kirpal Singh gave a detailed presentation of the Aadhaar project to the committee. He said only 5-7 and 15-17 years mandatory biometric update facility is free. So efforts are being made by Registrar UID Punjab to get 100 per cent biometric updates of children of this age groups.

Bhawna Garg, Deputy Director General at UIDAI's Regional Office in Chandigarh, said the adult population has already been covered by Aadhaar. The main focus needs to be on children. Till September 14, any citizen, who has never updated his Aadhaar in the last 10 years can do online document updates in Aadhaar for free.