Panel on Aadhaar-RIC conflict met only once

Ministry concerned over slow pace of UID project

 A 15-member group of ministers (GoM) constituted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh two months ago to sort out conflicting voices in the Cabinet over providing resident identity cards (RIC) and 12-digit Aadhaar number has met only once.

The Union Home Ministry now fears that the ambitious project might take a beating due to the slow pace of governance. 

After issuing more than 20 crore Aadhaar numbers last year, the UPA government is back to the boardroom to sort out confusion among ministers between Aadhaar and RIC, which is critical for national security.

The sources said the first meeting of the GoM headed by Defence Minister A K Antony on March 13 failed as Cabinet ministers and special invitees hardly discussed anything substantial.

Officials fear that since the issue is not on the top of the agenda for UPA ministers, it is likely to miss the 2014 deadline for handing over RICs and 60 crore Aadhaar cards.

It is learnt that the Registrar General of India, tasked to prepare RICs, gave a presentation to the GoM informing them that Section 14 A of the Citizenship Act, 1955, makes it mandatory to equip citizens with cards which would contain personal details.

The decision to set up a GoM just to sort out the differences is intriguing to the officials as only in January last year, the Cabinet had cleared the home ministry proposal for identity card and Aadhaar numbers, which are not conflicting exercises.

 The Cabinet note of January 27, 2012, had clearly stated that RICs would have Aadhaar numbers embossed on them, which means that it would be merely a number people will possess.

The RIC was supposed to be issued to citizens who are 18-years and above.
 The confusion could be because the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), headed by Nandan Nilekani, is carrying out the task of providing Aadhaar numbers to citizens since September 2010.

There have been differences of opinion between the home ministry and the UIDAI on functioning, especially on the overlapping of their efforts and serious glitches in collection of data, apart from huge funds being spent by them.

Officials said they had explained it to the GoM the need to push the scheme which has security ramifications, as it would be one of the instruments to weed out infiltrators.