New Delhi
The Economic Times (Delhi edition)
Each Indian citizen will have a unique national identity card in the next three years. Announcing this in her address to the joint session of Parliament, President Pratibha Patil said the implementation of the Unique Identity Card Scheme — which would facilitate identification both for security purposes and for availing of development programmes — would be overseen by an Empowered Group.
Union home minister P Chidambaram had, soon after taking over late last month, announced the issue of multi-purpose identity cards to all residents in 2011, starting with the citizens in border and coastal areas. “The national population register will be ready by 2011 and the multi-purpose national identity cards will be issued to all residents in 2011,” he informed mediapersons.
The work, Chidambaram added, had already started in coastal areas as well as Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
A pilot project for issue of identity cards has been undertaken in select districts across 12 states and Union territories.
The proposed identity card is a smart card having a microprocessor chip. This is a secure card for which recommendation was made by the government-constituted technical committee comprising representatives from National Informatics Centre, IIT Kanpur, Bharat Electronics Limited, Indian Telephone Industries Limited, Electronics Corporation of India Limited and Intelligence Bureau.
The identity smart cards are being issued to citizens of 18 years and more under the pilot project. They are expected to arrest both the entry of terrorist elements from other countries as well as illegal immigration from Bangladesh.
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