Citizens will be issued national i-cards, says Rajnath

Indian citizens will be issued a national identity card, Home Minister Rajnath Singh told the Lok Sabha Tuesday.

Replying to a query about illegal infiltration in the country, he said the National Population Register (NPR) being prepared will help identify who is an Indian citizen and who is not.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had convened a meeting concerning the NPR and Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), and the two agencies will work in mutual coordination, and have been told not to take very long in preparing a comprehensive NPR database, he said.

"NPR will identify who is Indian citizen and who is not. (Indian) Citizens will also be issued a national identity card," he said.

The home minister said the government has taken a number of steps such as fencing to stop the illegal infiltration from across the borders.

He said fencing has been sanctioned in 3,326 km of 4,096-km-long India-Bangladesh border and 2,823 km had been completed. He said work was being done on another 500 km.

Singh said the government is facing difficulty in the erecting fencing along rest of the Indo-Bangladesh border due to the riverine and hilly topography.