An Aadhaar portal outage disrupted property document registration across Maharashtra on October 13 after an optical fibre cable linked to the Information Technology Department in Mumbai was damaged, leaving citizens and lawyers unable to complete registrations at offices across the state.
The Aadhaar verification process stopped at around 3.30 pm at document registration offices, according to a report by Pudhari. Since Aadhaar authentication is required for the registration process, the disruption directly stalled the processing of property documents and left applicants waiting at registration offices.
The registration department informed the Information Technology Department about the technical failure after it was identified as the cause of the portal outage. The interruption affected document registration across the state, although the report did not specify the number of offices or transactions affected.
Abhay Singh Mohite, deputy inspector general in the Registration and Stamp Duty Department, directed offices to remain open beyond regular hours if the technical problem was resolved. The additional time was intended to allow applicants whose registrations had been delayed to complete the process later in the day.
However, the Aadhaar portal remained unavailable until late at night, according to the report. As a result, applicants and lawyers who had come to registration offices had to return without completing their property document registrations. The department’s extended-hours arrangement could not resolve the immediate disruption while the authentication system remained offline.
The outage also affected government revenue because property registrations could not be completed during the interruption. The report did not provide figures for the number of documents delayed or the amount of revenue affected.
The incident highlights the operational dependence of property registration offices on a central digital authentication system and the consequences of a failure in the supporting communications network. For applicants, a disruption at the verification stage can delay transactions even when they have reached the registration office with the required documents and representatives.
The registration department’s next step, as reported, was to continue coordinating with the Information Technology Department to restore the Aadhaar portal. Further details on the restoration time, the number of pending registrations and any revised arrangements for affected applicants were not available in the report.
