The Jammu Kashmir administration’s move to issue a “Unique Identification Number” (UID) to the Srinagar residents has been criticized by the regional political parties.
The LG-Manoj Sinha-led admin had said that UID will be issued in the coming days to Srinagar residents so that every house and its occupants can get “social welfare benefits”.
Opposition political parties of Jammu Kashmir expressed their anger over this, saying that this number is aimed at increasing surveillance on people and insecurity of personal details of people and a loot of public money as Adhaar already has the details if they are only meant for social benefits.
Divisional commissioner of Kashmir province, Vijay Kumar Budhuri, said that the administration is preparing to give UID to every household, which will make the details of each household and its members available to the administration. “This number will make it easy to identify people’s houses and the administration will also be able to manage people as this number will contain people’s identity, home address and other details,” said Bidhuri.
Spokesperson of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) spokesperson said the administration’s move increases the surveillance of people and the fear that their personal data will be leaked. “The current administration wants to monitor the personal life of every individual in Kashmir and the central government is establishing a different class of citizens in Jammu Kashmir,” said Suhail.
JK National Conference spokesperson Imran Nabi Dar said that this is an unnecessary step of the administration, which is wasting resources and increasing surveillance on the public.
Dar said that the government has provided Aadhaar cards to people across the country in which the personal details, identification address of every citizen is already there. He further said that “now the purpose of giving this new UID is nothing other than to increase surveillance on people.”