Cabinet did not take up UIDAI proposal due to paucity of time

New Delhi: A Cabinet Committee could not discuss today the proposal to allow UIDAI to start enrolments in areas other than 18 states and Union Territories allocated to it, due to paucity of time. According to an official source, the Cabinet Committee on Unique identification Authority of India (UIDAI) meeting scheduled for today to discuss the proposal was not held as the meeting of the Cabinet took time to decide on LPG cylinder issue and other matters.[caption id=“attachment_1367243” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The Aadhar logo. Image courtesy UIDAI[/caption] Both the committees are headed by Prime Minister Manmohann Singh. The cabinet today raised the number of subsidised cooking gas cylinders to 12 from 9 in a year and delinked the subsidy payment from the direct benefit transfer scheme. The UIDAI proposal was mooted by the Planning Commission to allow the authority to start enrolments in states and Union Territories which were not part of its mandated operations. The Commission’s proposal is based on the view that this is required to speed up collection of biometrics details of residents and for issuing them Aadhaar numbers as well as a National Multi-purpose Identity Cards (NMIC). Besides government wants to use Aadhaar and NMIC for its ambitious scheme of direct benefit transfer where beneficiaries’ accounts are directly credited for payment of pension, scholarships and other subsidies. “The Commission discussed the proposal with Registrar General of India (RGI) under the Ministry of Home Affairs. They have agreed that UIDAI can be allowed to enrol in some states where they are collecting biometrics details of resident, to speed up enrolments,” an official said. At present RGI is working on a project called National Population Register (NPR) which is a digital database of residents of the country with their biometrics details. At present UIDAI has issued 56 crore Aadhaar cards to residents against the mandated 60 crore so far whereas under NPR, RGI has enrolled around 14 crore. As per an arrangement worked out in January 2012, UIDAI was asked to enrol 60 crore residents, while RGI was to enrol the remaining 61 crore under NPR to collect biometric data. Using the biometrics data of the entire population, UIDAI is to issue Aadhaar numbers and RGI is to issue NMICs to all residents. PTI