PC: Cabinet may take final decision on biometric row

The Union Cabinet could next week decide who will conduct the biometric enumeration for preparing the National Population Register (NPR), Home Minister P Chidambaram said on Friday.

The Union Cabinet could next week decide who will conduct the biometric enumeration for preparing the National Population Register (NPR), Home Minister P Chidambaram said on Friday.

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The Home Minister said there were two points of view on who will do the biometric enumeration and the Planning Commission, the Department of Expenditure and other agencies concerned have expressed their views on it.

"Therefore, we have advised (Unique Identification Authority of India Chairman) Nandan Nilekani to bring a paper to the (union) cabinet. I think the UIDAI will bring a paper to the cabinet very soon, even as early as next week," he said. Nilekani had on Thursday said he would approach the cabinet.

The Home Ministry had earlier, along with the Planning Commission, resisted the UIDAI proposal to independently collect the biometric details - photograph, iris image and ten fingerprints - of all residents.

Home Secretary RK Singh had told a finance ministry panel that this would lead to duplication since the Census Commissioner would need to carry this exercise under the law.

On Pakistan

Chidambaram said he wasn't surprised that the US had discovered Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI's links with terror outfits including the Haqqani group, saying this was always known.

"We always know that ISI has links with terrorist groups," Chidambaram said on the latest US assessment that the

ISI had links with Haqqani network in Afghanistan-Pakistan region.

On Dawood

On underworld don Dawood Ibrahim wanted in India, Chidambaram said there was very little that this country can do to counter Pakistan's denial about presence of the global terrorist there.