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The Cabinet may have brought about a truce between the Home Ministry and Planning Commission on the issue of duplication in biometric cards, but round one seems to have gone in Mr P. Chidambaram's favour.
For one, the UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) will now focus only in 16 States and Union Territories where it has already started work. The rest of the country will be covered by the National Population Registry (NPR) database being collected by the Home Ministry.
‘Intensive review'
Following security concerns, the UIDAI will resume work only on April 1, after ‘intensive review of all processes and procedures'. This was stated by Mr Chidambaram at a press briefing here on Friday.
The Cabinet, however, sanctioned an additional Rs 5,000 crore to the UIDAI to cover 40 crore people, taking the total to 60 crore, he said.
“By doing this, most avoidable costs and duplications have been avoided. This will also speed up the process, which we hope to complete by June 2013,” he said.
The Home Minister made it clear that in case of any discrepancy, the NPR data will prevail, as it is mandatory household data which capture 15 fields of information, as opposed to five by the UID, which is voluntary.
“The only minor change in the NPR's mandate is that if a person already has an Aadhaar number, his biometrics will not be captured,” he added.
Terming the Cabinet's decision as the “best of both worlds”, the UIDAI head, Mr Nandan Nilekani, said it combines the strengths of both the models.
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