60% of voters linked Aadhaar to Voter Card data released by RTI

Current Context: According to the Election Commission of India, as of January 2023, over 60% of India’s 94.5 crore voters have connected their Aadhaar numbers to their voter IDs.There are 56,90,83,090 voters who are linked to their Aadhaar overall.

• The ECI had launched National Electoral Roll Purification (NERP) programme in March 2015 to link Aadhaar with voter ID cards.
• The aim of NERP was to remove duplicate entries and ensure accuracy of electoral rolls.
• The per-State percentages given here are based on total voter enumerations released by States and Union Territories in the past three years.
• The highest percentage of Aadhaar-voter ID linkage is in Telangana with 97.25%, followed by Andhra Pradesh with 96.71% and Chhattisgarh with 93.63%.
• The lowest percentage of Aadhaar-voter ID linkage is in Nagaland with 0.44%, followed by Mizoram with 1.19% and Meghalaya with 1.28%.
• The ECI has said that linking Aadhaar with voter ID is voluntary and not mandatory.

Some of the benefits of linking Aadhaar with voter ID are:

• It can eliminate fake voter cards and duplicate voter cards
• It can ensure accuracy of electoral rolls
• It can clear the path to internet voting or e-voting
• It can enable voters to vote from different locations across the country or abroad

Question:

Q.1 According to RTI released data, which state has the lowest percentage of Aadhaar-voter ID linkage?
a. Nagaland
b. Mizoram
c. Meghalaya
d. Manipur