Govt’s move to try and merge the two comes even as it seeks to move ahead with a plan to identify Indian citizens via the NPR and issue citizenship cards Aman Malik
While Aadhaar gives a unique identity number to a person, thereby authenticating him, it does not confer citizenship. Photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint New Delhi:
The government on Thursday formed a panel of secretaries to look into the issue of merging the National Population Register (NPR) with Aadhaar, or the Unique Identification Number. Two senior government officials independently said the decision to form the panel—comprising home secretary Anil Goswami, Planning Commission secretary Sindhushree Khullar and information technology secretary Ram Sewak Sharma—was taken at the end of a presentation made by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner C. Chandramouli. Neither official wanted to be identified. Chandramouli made the presentation before home minister Rajnath Singh, law, telecom and information technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and junior minister for planning Rao Inderjit Singh. Besides Goswami and Khullar, Vijay S. Madan, director-general and mission director at the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) was also present. Sharma did not attend the meeting. While the panel has not been given any definitive terms of reference or a deadline, it has been asked to come up with a report “as soon as possible”, one of the two people said. At a press conference, the home minister confirmed that a meeting on the issue had indeed taken place, but did not share any details. The government’s move to try and merge the two comes even as it seeks to move ahead with a plan to identify Indian citizens via the NPR and issue citizenship cards in the next three years. While Aadhaar gives a unique identity number to a person, thereby authenticating him, it does not confer citizenship. Two other people with direct knowledge of the matter said the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner (which deals with NPR and is a wing of the home ministry) wants to “take back” the job of enrolling people for Aadhaar from the UIDAI. Although initially both NPR and UIDAI were asked to share the enrolment equally, over time, the latter was mandated to enrol 940 million people. While UIDAI officials say they have enrolled 700 million people, home ministry officials put the figure at 630 million. One of the people cited above said that during Thursday’s presentation, the home ministry suggested UIDAI “should be brought under its control”, but both Rao Inderjit Singh and Prasad had reservations about the idea. Mint could not independently confirm this. Neither minister could be immediately reached for comment. Officials said while there was no clarity on which wing of the government would control UIDAI, the agency’s demand for an additional budgetary allocation of Rs.680 crore is likely to be approved by the government in the next few days. A 30 June report in The Indian Express newspaper said the government plans to link the citizenship card to the voter identification card, which enables an Indian citizen to exercise his franchise during elections to the Parliament, state legislatures and local bodies. Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society, said the UIDAI under the home ministry “would be interested only in Indian citizens. Authentication functionality of Aadhaar number will no longer be important”.