The Indian citizens will get a National I-D card soon. The idea for the National I-D card was of the NDA government and now the UPA government is taking the idea forward. In this card the citizen will have their photograph, their fingerprint and other details.
All the details will be rolled in a smart card and it will be the most authentic proof that who you are wherever you are in India. The Registrar General of India is taking the responsibility for the exercise.
The department has promised to roll out from March to reach 18 lakh-plus people more than 18 years of age in 12 states and a Union Territory.
The concept of the National I-D Card was actually the brain child of the then Union Home Minister L K Advani.
He had said for the necessity of the card in 2003 and the project got the momentum in 2005.
The UPA government has given the green signal for that and looking for a supervising agency to prepare smart cards. The agency will look, prepare and distribute the cards to 18 lakh-plus ‘Indians’ whose identity has been officially established.
The Union Home Ministry has given its assent for the card that will have the name, date of birth, place of birth, parent’s name and the citizen’s photograph and fingerprint.
With the distribution of the cards, a network of card-reading machines will be also distributed across the country.
The selected border-entry points will be the hot places for such machines and cards to scan for authentic identity.
The National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, has made the outlay of the the cards. At the same time, as many as 19 MNIC centres are finding citizenship details in areas covered by the pilot project.
MNIC centres are getting the support of more than 300 employees of the RGI’s, a association of Bharat Electronics Ltd, ECIL and ITI. On the other hand, the National Informatics Centre (NIC) is providing the cyber technology to prepare the smart cards.
A senior official said that works would start moving from March when the supervising agency will complete its work. Delivery of cards will be completed by May. The Department of Posts has been roped in for the last work that is to deliver the smart cards to the doorsteps.
The aim behind the necessity of the smart card is to maintain the security in border areas and the other disturbed areas of the country. It may take many years to provide smart cards to all Indian citizens and the government admits as much.
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