The Bengal government’s hesitation to open up adequate permanent Aadhaar centres is one of the major reasons for winding queues of common people in front of banks and post offices for rectification in the 12-digit identification card, said a senior state administrative official.

In the wake of panic over a possible pan-India NRC exercise, thousands of people are visiting permanent Aadhar centres — set up at the Union government establishments like banks and post offices — to rectify errors in their cards.

“Thousands of people, particularly in border districts, are standing in queues everyday. Some Aadhaar centres are giving them time after two years because of the unexpected rush,” said a bureaucrat.

The situation, however, could have been avoided had the Bengal government followed the guidelines issued by the Centre in 2018. As per the guidelines, the state has been allowed to launch more than 1,000 such centres, instead of 300-odd in Bengal now.

“Till 2018, there were about 500 permanent centres at the state government establishments like gram panchayats and municipalities. All of them were shut down after the state refused to be a registrar of Aadhaar. So, only the central government offices remained as the Aadhaar centres,” said another official.

According to sources, now that the NRC panic has gripped both rural and urban Bengal, the problem of having lower number of centres is felt.

A source said reports received by Nabanna revealed that 8,000 to 10,000 people were standing in the queues regularly in some areas of Murshidabad and Malda.

“The situation is really worrisome. The panic among the people and dearth of Aadhaar centres could lead to a serious law and order problem,” said a bureaucrat.

As there are inadequate bank branches in rural areas and most of the post offices don’t have required infrastructure, it was difficult to set up required number of Aadhaar centres at villages.

“As of now, one centre caters for hundreds of villages. That is why there is a huge rush at the centres,” said an official adding the rural centres could not entertain more than 20-25 applicants a day because of lack of manpower and slow Internet connection.

A section of the officials said the state could apply to be registrar of Aadhaar at any point of time.

But it was yet not clear whether the state government would come forward to give people some relief.