Aadhaar helps hearing, speech-impaired teen reunite with family after two years

Nagpur: Jayant,16, a hearing and speech-impaired boy, could only hug his father as they sobbed holding each other at the Government Boys Children Home in Patankar Chowk, where they got reunited after a gap of two years. Though the family had not lodged a complaint of his missing, it was looking for him.

The Uttar Pradesh (UP)-based family got its son back after a gap of two years due to the proactive roles of a Unique Identification Authority of India’s (UIDAI) Aadhaar Seva Kendra (ASK) manager and a superintendent of the children home.

Jayanth, alias Shivam Chauhan, was rescued by railway police in August 2019 from Nagpur railway station. It’s learnt that hearing and speech-impaired Chauhan was unable to communicate through sign language, as he never went to special schools to learn it.

The boy was sheltered at the government’s home, where the authorities tried to communicate with him through different means and through experts, but nothing worked out. As he could not reveal his name, the boy was rechristened as ‘Jayant’. It was later learnt that Jayant had a suffered a fall on the sixth day after his birth, which likely left him with the disabilities for the rest of the life.

Jayant’s repatriation process met with a major roadblock due to the pandemic. The shelter home authorities had made some efforts prior to that, but nothing succeeded.

Superintendent Vinod Daberao said his final attempt to ascertain the identity and home address of the boy was through Aadhaar verification. “We had initially contacted a local Aadhaar centre but could not find out any details. Finally, we approached Captain Anil Marathe of UIDAI’s ASK to help establish the boy’s identity,” he said.

Ex-serviceman Marathe, who had last month helped a boy reunite with his family after more than a decade through Aadhaar verification, said he got a confirmation from UIDAI’s Bengaluru office that Jayant’s Aadhaar card was made somewhere, but had to take permission from the regional office for further processing.

“We had some official correspondence with the regional office of UIDAI in Mumbai from where the password for opening the Aadhaar card was sent to us,” said Marathe, adding that the boy’s Aadhaar card had been created in 2016.

Marathe said the Aadhaar card revealed that Jayant’s real name was Shivam Chauhan and that he was from Itauri Bazaar, within the limits of Sonikpur police station in UP.

Daberao said Sonikpur police were alerted about Jayant and asked to help contact his family. “His father came to Nagpur on August 2 and took the boy along the following day,” he added.