Express news service Posted online: Sat Feb 16 2013, 01:14 hrs
New Delhi : Almost every minister who had raised a concern at a recent Cabinet meeting on issuing of resident identity cards under the National Population Register (NPR) has been included in a group of ministers constituted to examine all aspects of the scheme and to resolve differences.
The GoM is headed by the defence minister and includes 11 other ministers and four special invitees, making it one of the larger GoMs in existence.
Many of these ministers are themselves not clear about the specific role of the resident identity cards and raised concerns about its duplicity with the Aadhaar numbers being issued by the UIDAI. Like the resident identity cards, the Aadhaar numbers are also being given on smart cards, containing personal biometric information.
Some ministers who had got Aadhaar numbers, like Heavy Industries Minister Praful Patel and Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Kumari Selja, had confessed that they were not aware whether the cards they had been issued contained any microchip carrying biometric information like fingerprints and iris scans that they had submitted while enrolling. Some other ministers had said that they believed that Aadhaar was only a number and was not to be given on a card.
A few ministers had wondered whether the Rs 5,500 crore project for issuing resident identity cards was not duplicating the efforts of Aadhaar and in that case whether it would not be a good idea to merge the two schemes.
The Cabinet, in that meeting, had decided to form a GoM to resolve all these issues.
The oversized GoM has been asked to look into the issue of resident identity cards “keeping in view all relevant issues and finalise its recommendations at an early date”. No deadline has been stipulated for finalising the recommendations.