An anonymous life without an Aadhar identity  

Gauri Suresh Kale, 12, and her three sisters and five brothers hang out outside their house in Maruti Nagar bastinear Katraj Wonder City in Pune. They’re spread out across awooden single-bed and a metal bench. From a grungy plastic bag, they fish out passport-size photographs of themselves from when they were much younger. They giggle looking at the changes.

It is 8 a.m. The children woke up to a rain-soaked house. “Aai (mother) is cleaning the hut. We don’t have a plastic sheet on the thatched roof,” explains Gauri, who is happy the photos are safe. Theirmother, Sakku Suresh Kale, says this is the only paper in the hut. It is from a time a few years ago when their father, a daily wager, had got them taken to make Aadhaar and ration cards, so the children could be enrolled in schools. The documents were never made.

There are 63children in this basti between 3 and 18 who do not have any proof of existence. None of them go to school. The settlement of 80 huts here belong to the tribe of Gav Pardhi.

Three years ago, Gauri and a few children from the settlement say they had stepped into a government school, HanumantraoTukaram Thorve Prathamik Vidhyalaya, just 500 metresaway, but when the administration found they didn’thave Aadhaar cards, they were asked to leave in two days.

Aadhaar is a 12-digit individual identification number issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India on behalf of the Government of India. The number serves as a proof of identity and address in India. The Aadhaar number remains valid for life. Many services, including banking, phone, and government departments ask for it.

Between 2013 and 2014, the Supreme Court said that not having an Aadhaar card should not be an impediment to accessing subsidies or services. However, in 2015 it allowed for its use in registering for monthly free rations and cooking gas subsidies; and in 2018 allowed for its use to access certain welfare schemes.

The Maharashtra Education Department’s Systematic Administrative Reforms for Achieving Learning (SARAL) portal asks for every student’s Aadhaar as it helps link students to government schemes such as scholarships and free uniforms and textbooks.

School fail

Gauri and her family live in a space created by erecting tin sheets for walls with a leaf-thatched roof. The floors are muddy. Most children here are born at home and never immunised. Parents only vaguely remember the ages of their children. While the men are daily wagers, women sellnimbu-mirchi – astring oflemon and green chillies that people hang at the doors of their homes or shops, believing itwill ward off the evil eye. Some children are enlisted to beg at red lights and in markets.

Appu Ratan Kale is probably nine. He and his four brothers and two sisters, all between 4 and 15 years, sit on the muddy pavement outside their hut. Appu is carving a broken cricket bat using a sharp tool almost the length of his hand. He has picked up the bat from a garbage bin outside an apartment block nearby.

His mother Ambu Kale says that a year ago she tried getting admission for the children. “The teacher told us that there is no point in bringing them to school because without an Aadhaar card, they would not get free school uniforms, bags, stationary, books, and the midday meal,” she says. She adds that they had approached the District Collector’s office several times but it has not yielded any results. “Now they sellnimbu-mirchiwith me.”

An official from the Department of Tribal Development, Government of Maharashtra, says it is hard to believe that children are refused admission in government schools for not having an Aadhaar card. “Under UDISE+ (Unified Information System for Education Plus, an education information management system) every school registers all students, even those without Aadhaar cards. Moreover, there areashramshalasfor tribal children in every district.”

School teachers say they need the Aadhaar card to register children on the SARAL portal.

The difficulty of death

In March, when a 65-year-old man from the Katkaria tribe died, his relatives were not allowed to cremate him in the village crematorium. They say they were asked for an Aadhaar card. After the family approached the gram panchayat of Khadakwasla village in Pune district, the police and the tehsildar, and staged a protest, apanchnama(investigation) was conducted. An Aadhaar card was madefor the dead man and his wifeand 17 hours later, he was cremated.The Katkarias are listed under the government’s particularly vulnerable tribal groups.

In Maruti Nagar basti, Rani Hanumant Pawar, who does not have a birth certificate, holds up a voter identity card. When she lost her husband seven years ago, shefaced a similar problem with his funeral. The mother of three children (6, 7, and 12), says, “Till date, I do not have my husband’s death certificate. My children also do not have any documents. If I had an Aadhaar card and death certificate, I would have been able to apply for several schemes.”

Pune Collector Jitendra Dudi says that they have been actively tracing and organising camps to make Aadhaar cards for those belonging to tribal communities. “In the last five months, we have identified 18,000 Katkaris (as they are known in Maharashtra) in Pune district, of which we have been able to arrange Aadhaar cards for 15,000 people. We have also been able to arrange ration cards for 3,500 families and provide housing with land for 900 Katkaris.”

For those who do not have any documents that could facilitate the making of an Aadhaar card, a panchnama is done by the Block Development Officer and tehsildar, who gather information about the place the person was born in, the Collector adds.

Linking road

Rajashri Yewale, 51, working as a supervisor with Pune-based Swadhar Institute for Development of Women & Children, a non-profit, has been visiting slums and settlements in Pune to convince their parents to send their children to a school their organisation runs.

“Our team of teachers had made several visits before westarted teaching inJanuary 2024. If Rani had the required documents, then she could have applied for schemes like the Mukhyamantri-Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana and the Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Anudan Yojana,” she says.The NGO has prepared a list of 136 children without Aadhaar cards in various bastis. They submittedthis to the Maharashtra Chief Ministerin November 2024.

While a handful of people do have Aadhaar cards made in Karnataka — since they are migrants — they either have spelling errors in their names or they are not linked with their phone numbers or they are wrongly linked with someone else’s bank account.

Shivaji Shalu Pawar considers himself ahead of the others in the basti as he got his Aadhaar card a decade ago through a government camp. After a few years, he got a voter ID, a Permanent Account Number(PAN) card and a mobile phone. “Despite having everything in place, my Aadhaar card is not linked with my phone number.” He has been trying to do this for some months now.

Camp Aadhaar

In Mokhadataluka of Palghar district where the majority are Katkaria, Warli, and Thakartribes, there are several who are in the same situation. Bhalchandra Salve, project officer with Aroehan, a Palghar-based NGO working for the rights of tribal communities, says, “The recent issue people with Aadhaar card errors are facing is the change in district. Earlier Palghar used to come under Thane district; now, it is a district in itself.”

The tehsildar office officials ask them to update it from Thane. Villagers say Thane, about 80 km away, is too far for them. After numerous follow-ups, the tehsildars have conducted several camps but with unreliable electricity and internet connectivity, only a few have managed to get cards.“In a year, along with the Collector’s office we have conducted 20 camps that benefited 150 people,” adds Bhalchandra.

In Maruti Nagar basti, Sanjana Sidhu Pawar (she assumes her age is 20) who is pregnant, claims she has not been able to benefit from the government’s maternal schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana and Janani Suraksha Yojana. “I have not received any immunisation or any prenatal vitamin supplements. I went to a government hospital but in the absence of an Aadhaar card, the medical staff refused.”

Doctors from government hospitals in Pune, Beed, Palghar, and Nashik say women are attached to a hospital when they get pregnant, but a number of the tribes are wandering.

Dr. Amol Gite, District Health Officer of Buldhanawho has worked across Maharashtra’s rural hospitals, says, “If a person without any documentation visits a government hospital, primary information is sought about their place of living and based on that they are registered for medical care.”

Nashik-based NGO Better Livelihood and Education through Fundamental Studies conducted a survey in March and April 2025 in 11 villages of the Palghar district, where around 5,000 people from Mahadev Koli, Katkari, Thakar, Yanadi-Kanadi and Warli tribes live.

Founder Laxmikant Jadhav says that 2,579 people were surveyed of which 2,167 do not have Aadhaar cards, voter ID cards, bank accounts, and MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) job cards.

Tatwashil Kamble, president of Rajarshi Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj Pratishthan, an NGO in Beed working for the welfare of tribals, says they have recently identified 10 children between 2 and 17 years of age, out of school for not having an Aadhaar card. “They are mostly from the Bhil and Pardhi tribe who take up seasonal sugarcane cutting work.”

Tragedy of errors

About 4 km away from Maruti Nagaris Unta basti (camel herders locality) in Gangadham, a settlement of over 100 huts. People here are from the Nathpanthi Davari Gosavi community, a Nomadic Tribe, who live here on rent in 10x8-feet single-room dwellings, paying a rent of ₹2,000 for huts. The roads here are uneven, narrow, muddy, with potholes, and dotted with cows, goats, camels and stray dogs.

Rekha Soma Chauhan, born with polio in her right leg, is filling pots with water from a common tap. After placing the pots inside her hut and wiping her wet hands, she shows her Aadhaar card that was made in Adilabad, Andhra Pradesh, but her name on it reads Athram Rekha. Her year of birth says 1985. Her late husband Soma Chauhan did not have any documents; neither do her three daughters.

“I have been trying to correct my name for years. If I had a proper Aadhaar card, I would have been receiving a disability and widow pension and not been dependent on my ageing parents working as housekeeping staff in flats.”

Walking the talk

Apparao Rathod, co-lead of the tribal pogramme at Mumbai-based non-profit, CORO (Committee of Resource Organisations)says that the organisation facilitated the formation of Bhatke Vimukta Adivasi Samanvay Samiti (Nomadic, Denotified, and Tribal Coordination Committee). Under this, grassroots organisations from across Maharashtra joined to raise the concerns of tribals with the government. Last year, the committeecarried out a Sanwad Yatra rally, covering 18 districts to advocate for the rights of tribal communities.

At each location, the team engaged with local communities, identified their issues, and submitted demand letters to respective District Collectors and officials from the Social Welfare and Tribal Development Departments.“From 42 different tribal communities, we identified over 336 children who lacked basic identity documents,” says Apparao.

The committee held a meeting with senior government officials and ministers in the State to emphasise the urgent need to start anganwadi centers in tribal hamlets, to ensure access to education and health care services, and simplify the process of obtaining documents.

On May 20, 2025, the Revenue and Forest Department, Government of Maharashtra, launched Maharajaswa Abhiyan to make the revenue administration more people oriented, efficient, and transparent.

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Edited by Sunalini Mathew