State chosen for unique ID project

Programme is to provide identity cards to all to establish citizenship

The National Authority for Unique Identity (NAUI), set up under the Planning Commission, has asked the state to implement the programme on a small scale to co-ordinate data on people, from different agencies.

The aim of the UID programme is to provide an identity card to every citizen to establish citizenship and address security concerns. The programme in Karnataka is being carried out the Department of e-governance, which at present, is in the process of identifying two districts, one urban and one rural, to gather the databases and check their compatibility.

Unique Identity, an integral part of the ongoing Multi-Purpose National Identity Card (MNIC) scheme, will be issued to citizens living in coastal villages of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal by 2010.

The Union Territories, which will be covered under the first phase, are: Dadar and Nagar Haveli, Lakshadweep, Puducherry and Andaman & Nicobar Islands. The project is likely to cover the entire country by 2012.

Though state government officials said the project was development-oriented, the avowed purpose would be to distinguish between citizens and non-citizens living in coastal areas.  The NAUI will work in coordination with the office of the Registrar General of India (RGI) which has been working on the National Population Register.

Smart cards

The identity cards proposed to be issued will be smart cards which will have information of each individual, his/her finger biometrics as well as photograph. A unique National Identity Number will be assigned to each individual including those below 18 years of age.

Sources in the e-governance department said the state has a relatively good user database and that is one of the reasons, Karnataka was chosen for the pilot. While it is still at the nascent stage, several guidelines have already been evolved.

“We are likely to choose two districts, one in North Karnataka and one in South Karnataka. Our main job will be to draw information from the data bases from all the departments and see how good the information is.

 “For example, a name in the records of one department might have been spelt differently in the records of another department. We have to see how to resolve such conflicts,” the official explained.

This exercise will be pulling information from the Department of Food and Civil Supplies, Women and Child Welfare Department and the electoral roll.

One of the districts will be semi urban district, while the other will be an urban district.

What is challenging is to work out a method of streamling the information in all the departments and maintain uniformity on a citizen’s basic information.

Apart from this, the need to provide incentives to the citizen to update information is also being considered. The exercise, once it starts, is expected to be completed in three months time.

While privacy concerns remain on this issue, recognising the need to avoid potential minefields, migrants will not be a part of this project. Only residents’ information will be picked randomly to check whether the information will correlate with what is on the other records. If this sounds scary, the government claims that having a id on record will ensure efficient delivery of services. 

Principal Secretary of e-governance B L Sridhar termed the exercise as a development programme with the aim of having a citizen-centric database, with basic information.