Daijiworld Media Network – Bengaluru

Bengaluru, Nov 20: Name mismatch while linking Aadhar to other documents will not be an issue anymore. Thanks to Centre for e-Governance which has developed a tool as part of Karnataka's effort to make Aadhar as the base for delivery of citizen services.

While linking documents to Aadhar if a name mismatch exists, the system will not allow the linking, “Name mismatch accounts for 80% of the problem in Aadhar seeding," Additional Chief Secretary-cum-Development Commissioner T M Vijay Bhaskar said.

However, now the technology-enabled mechanism developed by Centre for e-Governance and Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) can help seed Aadhar with a person's document even if there is a name mismatch.

"It is for the first time in India that such a name-matching tool has been developed. The name-matching tool will come up with a name-match score. The software is such that we can set a threshold score, say 70%, that will determine whether or not the person is the same even if there is a name mismatch," Additional Chief Secretary (e-governance) Rajeev Chawla said.

Citing his own name as an example, Chawla said: "Aadhar may have my name as Rajeev and a document may have Rajiv. The software will come out with a name-match score. If the score is high enough, Aadhar will be seeded with the document. If the score is low, someone in our department will manually check for a match," he said. Apparently, it took "quite some convincing" for the UIDAI to allow the state government to develop the tool.

To ensure that name mismatch does not affect 30 lac farmers who are seeking drought relief under the Parihara scheme, the software has already been deployed.

The name mismatch issue arises while linking Aadhar with ration cards, income or caste certificates. To solve the PAN and Aadhar linking issues, the Finance Ministry had to allow the PAN-Aadhar seeding if the date of birth and gender of the person matched in both databases.