With the government deciding that both the Unique Identification Authority of India and the National Population Register will share the burden of collecting Indian residents’ biometric data for providing “Aadhar” numbers and smart cards, the ongoing controversy between the home ministry and the Planning Commission has been put to rest.
The resolution came at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on UIDAI chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which gave in-principle approval to the UID Authority to gather data for an extra 400 million people in 13 states and three Union territories, while the biometrics in other states will be collected under the home ministry’s NPR project.
A disquieting fact has, however, emerged. While the duplication issue has been resolved, in places where the UIDAI will operate people will have to get themselves covered twice. This is because the UID authority will collect data only on five counts, whereas the NPR has 15 counts. Also, while giving data for NPR is mandatory under the law, the UID is voluntary. Questions are being raised if people would like to go twice to registrars in the UIDAI states to get enrolled.
The Cabinet committee cleared an additional `5,791.74 crores for UIDAI, with the authority led by IT czar Nandan Nilekani pledging that the security concerns flagged by the home ministry will be addressed.
It was decided earlier that all Indian residents will be covered by the two agencies by June 2013. “We will review the security concerns in the next six-eight weeks and begin the process of collection of data from April,” Mr Nilekani said after the meeting.
Home minister P. Chidambaram said there was no difference with the Planning Commission on issuance of cards. However, in case of “discrepancies between UIDAI data and NPR data, the NPR will prevail”, the minister said, adding that the new system was as secure as humanly possible.
“Aadhaar is voluntary and NPR is mandatory... It is a government programme,” Mr Chidam-baram said, saying the issue of duplication of data had been avoided. “Most avoidable duplication and avoidable costs have been avoided,” he said, saying those who had been issued “Aadhaar” numbers will not have to give their biometric details again for NPR. A financial proposal for the extra 400 million Aadhar enrolments will be taken up soon.