Arms rendered useless as many fail to get UID

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, July 12

Many arm licensees, who could not obtain a unique identification number (UID) for their arms from the district administration within the deadline of April 30, will not be able to use their arms.

It includes a large number of ex-servicemen in the district who have failed to obtain the UID due to technical reasons.

The Centre had made it mandatory for every arm licensee to obtain an electronically generated UID for the arms owned by him by April-end.

All DCs had been directed to provide the UIDs to the arms licensees. A licensee could possess three arms and one UID has been issued for a licensee.

A large number of ex-servicemen had reportedly failed to obtain the UID as they possessed licence made in other states. Since the prescribed format did not have any such column to accommodate their claim, they had failed to obtain the UID.

Additional District Magistrate Sandeep Negi said 200 people, a majority of whom were ex-servicemen and possessed licence from other states, had failed to obtain the UIDs in the district.

He said the ministry’s site was now closed for issuing new UIDs and those who had missed the opportunity would lose licence. He said 3,297 had obtained UIDs in the district.

The ministry had extended this deadline several times from October 2015 and the step was aimed at maintaining an electronic record of arms in an area.