Panel to assess costs of a unique identity
By Priyadarshi Siddhanta
Posted: Wed Jun 02 2010, 01:58 hrs
New Delhi
Every time the UPA government’s ambitious Unique ID project tries to take a step forward, it seems to hit a bureaucratic wall. Days after the UID Authority chief Nandan Nilekani complained to the Union cabinet about inadequate staffing, the government has constituted a high-level committee of top bureaucrats to iron out issues about duplication in its methodology and huge costs.
A source said the cabinet committee on the UID headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh decided in its last meeting to constitute a high-level committee to avoid duplication.
The committee would comprise top officials from the Prime Minister’s office (PMO), home ministry, planning commission and the UIDAI to look into the issues that have cropped up after the announcement of the National Population Register (NPR) and the inclusion of iris details in biometric data.
There are concerns that since the NPR is a standardised format, the UIDAI’s desire to talk to multiple registrars may result in duplication on a massive scale.