Jan 21, 2012 |
Age Correspondent |
New Delhi
As the Union Cabinet is expected to take up the contentious issue of expanding the Unique Identification Authority of India’s (UIDAI) mandate on Wednesday, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Friday raised the pitch by openly backing the Nandan Nilekani-led project. This has come despite home minister P. Chidambaram’s objections citing security issues.
Sources revealed that the Union Cabinet on Wednesday was expected to take up the matter involving expansion of the UID’s mandate to cover over 200 million residents and giving the Authority a statutory status. The MHA is also expected to seek the Cabinet’s nod for its ambitious `6,700-crore project to issue smart identity cards to all residents in the country with biometric details.
Incidentally, the home ministry proposal was earlier shot down by the Planning Commission, which felt that the UIDAI project can do a better job of capturing data, which will then become the base for “Aadhar” numbers to the residents.
Mr Ahluwalia, while putting his weight behind the Nandan Nilekani-led authority, said, “In our view, it should continue. This can be done, parallel with whatever others (home ministry) are doing. Whatever UIDAI is doing is the right thing to do and it should be continued.”
When asked whether proposal would be discussed next week in the Cabinet, Mr Ahluwalia said, “I hope so. We have sent a Cabinet note.” He also made it clear that they (he and Dr Nilekani) would have no problems if the home ministry wants to do it differently. “We are not talking about national security. We are only talking about UID,” he asserted.
Mr Chidambaram had, however, shot off letters to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh twice clearly stating that the biometric census done by the UID project did not pass security criteria.