Aadhar should have names of father, husband for women: Ex-CEC

Chennai, Oct 31 (PTI) Former Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami today said that the Aadhar card issued by Unique Identification Authority of India should have a woman's father's name as well as her husband's name, in order to avoid problems arising out of different surnames. Gopalaswami said south Indians, especially women, had problems in getting their surnames right in the supporting documents like PAN cards, passports and voters identity card. "Most of the documents will not have the expansion of the initials in the documents. The methodology of writing documents should be changed. This will happen to people from Tamil Nadu, since they don't use surnames but initials," Gopalaswami told reporters on the sidelines of a function here. "Married women generally use their husband's name as their surname. But, in PAN card, they ask for her father's name. So, the surname in the PAN card will differ from other documents. There is a need for standardising this. So, Aadhar card should have both a woman's father's name and her husband's name". Asked whether he will make a formal suggestion to the UIDAI authorities, he said, "I am planning to make one". The former Chief Election Commissioner also has problems in getting the address in his PAN card changed, as his passport shows his name as Needamangalam Gopalaswami, while his voter's ID shows his name as N Gopalaswami. Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique identification (UID) number being issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to all Indian residents. Aadhar, as of now, asks only for a woman applicant's father's or husband's name and not both. The UID number is stored in a centralised database and linked to the basic demographics and biometric information -– photograph, ten fingerprints and iris –- of each individual.