Now, two biometric I-cards for you

Get ready to have two photo identity cards based on similar bio-metric details to avail services from separate Central government agencies. Chetan Chauhan reports. The mess

Updated on: Oct 20, 2011, 02:05:39 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Get ready to have two photo identity cards based on similar bio-metric details to avail services from separate Central government agencies.

Nandan Nilekani headed Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and the Census commissioner will issue their own photo identity cards. Both the photo-identity cards will have your picture, address and other bio-metric details of finger prints and iris scan.

As per the earlier government decision, the Census commissioner was supposed to issue a national identity card based on biometric based Aadhaar number to be generated by UIDAI.

"Now the government has decided to deliver the UID/Aadhaar number in the form of an Aadhaar card," the UIDAI said in the document seeking request for proposals for printing Aadhaar cards. Every resident in India will get a machine readable Aadhaar card.

"There was a genuine grievance that the letter containing Aadhaar obviously did not have a long life," a UIDAI official explained. The plastic card would resolve this problem and act as an identity card as well to enable the government to deliver services through its e-governance programmes.

But the move has provoked strong protests from the planning commission and the home ministry. They claim that Aadhaar card would duplicate the work already undertaken by the Census commissioner, mandated to issue identity cards for population above 18 years.

UIDAI’s Director-General RS Sharma did not respond to HT's email or text messages.

The government has estimated that the Census commissioner will require Rs 6,789 crore to issue national identity cards. The UIDAI’s decision, which includes postal deliver of Aadhaar number to residents, would cost another Rs 2,000 crore, if entire population of 1.2 billion gets Aadhar cards.

While the Aadhaar card would act as single identification document across India to avail services such as opening a bank account or applying for water or electricity connection the Census commissioner’s identity card as be proof of residence. "Both the cases would serve same purpose," admitted a government official, who was not willing to be quoted.

The issue is likely to be discussed at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on UIDAI, where the authority is expected to submit a proposal seeking enrolment of all residents by 2017. A finance ministry committee had allowed UIDAI to enroll 20 crore people till March 2012, leaving the final decision to the Cabinet committee.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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