Plan panel, Home Ministry row over data collection for smart cards resolved

New Delhi, Jan 28 (PTI) The ongoing conflict between India's Planning Commission and the Home Ministry over issuance of chip-based smart cards to all residents of the country was put to rest Friday with the central government clearing the Unique Identification Authority of India's proposal to enroll an extra 400 million people in 16 states beyond the present limit of 200 million, while the biometrics for the remaining 600 million people in the other states will be collected under the National Population Register project. While the government has cleared additional funding of Rs 57.92 billion (about 1.16 billion USD) for the UIDAI, the IT expert Nandan Nilekani-led UIDAI has assured that the security concerns raised by the Home Ministry would be addressed. The entire process by the two agencies will be completed by June next year. "We will review the security concerns in the next six to eight weeks and begin the process of collection of data from April," Nilekani told reporters here after his proposal was cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Briefing reporters, Home Minister P Chidambaram said there was no difference with the Planning Commission over the issuance of the cards. However, in case of "discrepancies between UIDAI data and NPR data, NPR will prevail," Chidambaram said and added the new system is as secure as humanly possible. "Aadhaar (issued by UIDAI) is voluntary and NPR is mandatory .... It is a government programme," Chidambaram said and maintained that the issue of duplicacy of the data has been avoided. "Most avoidable duplication and avoidable costs have been avoided," he said and explained that residents who had been issued "Aadhaar" number issued by UIDAI will not have to give their bio-metrics again for the NPR. The chip-based Multipurpose National Identity Card issued by the NPR will capture 15 details of every individual where as the UIDAI collects five fields. Chidambaram said adequate precautions have been taken to avoid duplication in data collection. "However, in a country of 1.2 billion people, small overlap is unavoidable." He said the government will come out with a bill to give statutory backing to National Population Register (NPR), implemented by Registrar General of India (RGI). The NPR -- the digital database of residents under construction -- will continue enrollment as envisaged, but if in the course of enrollment, a person indicates he/she is already enrolled for Aadhaar, the biometric data will not be captured by NPR, Chidambaram said. Instead, the Aadhaar number/enrollment number will be recorded in NPR and the biometric data will be sourced from the UIDAI, he added. PTI