VChetan Chauhan and Aloke Tikku, Hindustan Times
New Delhi, January 25, 2012
In an attempt to end the tug-of-war between the home ministry and Nandan Nilekani's UIDAI over collection of biometrics, a key meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday found a way out to address concerns of both sides
It was decided to work out a mechanism
to enable the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) as well as the home ministry's National Population Register (NPR) to split the task of biometric enrollment of over billion people, a senior government source said.
The compromise will be vetted by a Cabinet panel on Friday.
"I think we have come to an agreement on how both the projects can proceed together without any difficulty," planning commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia said after the meeting attended by key government leaders including home minister P Chidambaram and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee.
Previous attempts to resolve the differences between the home ministry and plan panel had failed, leading to fears that UIDAI and the NPR could end up collecting biometric data of a billion people twice.
At Wednesday's meeting, government sources said, it was Mukherjee's suggestion to that showed the way ahead.
The UIDAI would accordingly be allowed to collect biometric details - Iris scan, photograph and ten fingerprints - of the people in 13 hinterland states such as Jharkhand, Tripura and Delhi.
The NPR would move into states along the coasts, international borders and where the UIDAI does not have a presence.
The government would have to change the rules for collecting NPR data to enable the home ministry to accept data of people enrolled by UIDAI. The home ministry had refused to change these rules, saying they were time-tested and finalised keeping security considerations in view.