Amidst differences between the Planning Commission and the Home Ministry, the Cabinet Committee on Unique Identity (UID) Number Project's meeting has been postponed till Friday.
This meeting was scheduled for Wednesday to take a call on granting UID number beyond 20 crores.
However, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, chaired an informal meeting with his senior Cabinet colleagues. The meeting was also attended by the UIDAI Chairman, Mr Nandan Nilekani, and the National Security Advisor (NSA), Mr Shivshankar Menon. The proposal is to extend the project to cover the entire population.
Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, said, “I think we have come to an agreement on how both the projects can proceed together without any difficulty. We are quite hopeful that we will have a resolution of these issues in that meeting,” he told reporters.
He also added that the Home Ministry's National Population Register (NPR) project for constructing digital database of residents could continue along with UIDAI.
“I think that there is agreement that both the projects can move ahead and ways can be found to avoid duplication. That was the key issue. I will send the supplementary note (to Cabinet),” he said.
At the centre of the controversy is the collection of biometric data of all residents. While the Home Ministry has maintained that the Registrar General of India (RGI) under it has been mandated to collect the data through the NPR, the UIDAI has also been authorised to gather the information.