Sreelatha Menon / New Delhi November 27, 2011, 0:31 IST
Enrol with it, even as UIDAI gets more money to collect data.
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and the National Population Register (NPR), under the home ministry, may be slugging it out for the right to collect data for UID numbers across the country, but the very important people in the capital, look distinctly inclined towards NPR. The likes of Home Minister P Chidambaram, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherji have already enrolled themselves with the National Population Register for unique identity numbers.
NPR has also proved to be quicker in the draw by getting to Rahul Gandhi to scan his iris and thumb, while UIDAI, well, still twiddles its thumbs.
The home ministry has maintained that the NPR data alone is reliable and the UIDAI should stick to allotment of numbers to those enrolled, rather than getting into enrolment and biometric iris-mapping. So far, UIDAI has been allowed to enrol (in other words, collect data and scan thumbs and irises) a sample population of 200 million, while it has been seeking permission to enrol the country’s entire population. It has claimed it can do this by 2017.
Both NPR and UIDAI have been working on enrolments simultaneously in many parts of the country, including the capital. In the New Delhi Municipal Corporation area, where all the political VIPs live, NPR has almost completed its second round of operations. The first was done during the census.
The VIPs don’t seem to be in two minds over which of the two should be their enrolling authority. Most of them have already been mapped by NPR for biometric and iris data.
Some, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, have not found time yet and are still being approached. The latter has been in favour of UIDAI being allowed to do the entire work and share data with NPR, rather than vice versa. However, the Planning Commission has also been at the forefront of raising questions over the cost of duplication of work, besides the necessity to scan irises.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi has also not been scanned for biometric and iris data, as she was in the US when the enrolment was done.
Senior BJP leader L K Advani, another of those yet to be enrolled, was likely to be available for iris and thumb scans this week, sources said.
A Cabinet Committee on UIDAI is expected to take a final decision on who would ultimately collect data for the whole country before UID numbers are given by UIDAI.
A proposal by Montek Singh Ahluwalia that UIDAI be allowed to do the biometric scan, or that NPR change its rules to accept data collected by UID, is before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Home Minister P Chidambaram this week wrote to the prime minister, saying using data collected through UIDAI was not reliable and could hurt security interests. A senior UIDAI official said the authority was also doing enrolment in the NDMC area, but it did not know who were included, as the Delhi government was assigned the job as its registrar. ‘We don’t know who is covered by UID there,’ the official said.