Shillong, August 0 4: Hynniewtrep Youth Council delegation (HYC) met the Director of Higher and Technical Education demanding the immediate revocation of the advertisement issued by the department which has made it mandatory for students to avail an Aadhaar number to receive the Post Metric Scholarship for the year 2016-17.
Addressing media persons , HYC general secretary Robertjune Khar Jahrin said, “The Director Ram Singh was apprised of the issue and he has assured us that he will take up this issue at the earliest with the state government.”Stating that the Council is strongly against the decision to make the Aadhaar number mandatory, he said that the Council members will also meet the General Administration Department Minister, HDR Lyngdoh.
In this connection he said, “If the Minister can’t give us proper clarification on the Aadhaar number then the Council will have to take other steps and measures to tackle the issue.” According to him, the Supreme Court of India had said that to have Aadhaar by the citizen of India is an act of voluntary and the state government can’t impose against any citizen to have it mandatorily.
He further said that the Supreme Court had also directed the state and central government to inform the people that Aadhaar is not mandatory.
Meghalaya and Assam is last on the list in India to implement the Aadhaar number and till date the enrolment has yet to tough 10 percent in the state. However this advertisement has given time for the students only till 31 August to submit their application,” he said adding that if the students can’t avail the Aadhaar number after the said date they will lose their right to avail their scholarship.
Observing that most of the people in the state are opposing the Aadhaar number he said, “If we look at the deffinatiation of the law on the part of residents it states that any person residing in any party of the country for more than 182 day is recognised as a resident but our state of Meghalaya has an international border with Bangladesh so who can prove that he or she had been staying for more that 182 days in the country.”
Concern that Meghalaya does not have any law or mechanism to check influx, he said, “If the government goes ahead with the enrolment of Aadhaar number then we will be giving entry to hundreds of illegal immigrant into the country and this will affect the demographic scenario in our state.”
He pointed out that Aadhaar is not the only card to prove the citizenship of any person in India instead there are other documents like EPIC etc.., which can be an alternative for providing the citizenship and residential of any person in India.
was directed by both the central and state government.
