Children without Aadhaar shut out of school

NINE-year-old Rakhi and her two siblings should be in school, but instead they spend afternoons watching cartoons on their father’s phone at home in the north Indian city of Lucknow.

Since they moved last year to Lucknow from Hardoi, about 110 km (68 miles) away, the children have been denied admission at a local school because they do not have Aadhaar, the biometric identity card issued by the Indian government.

They are among tens of millions of poor children who risk exclusion from school or benefits programmes because they do not have the digital ID card.

‘When we were in Hardoi, the children used to go to a private school in the neighbourhood. They did not ask for Aadhaar there,’ said their mother Sunita Saxena, 30, who sells snacks with her husband out of their shack by a highway.

‘In the last year we have run from pillar to post to get Aadhaar cards for the children.’