Govt to consider how to merge Aadhar-NPR

Government is considering the possibility of bringing synergy between National Population Register (NPR) and Aadhar projects and how the two could be made "complementary" so as to end any duplication among them.

The issue was discussed threadbare at a high-level meeting convened by Home Minister Rajnath Singh and attended by Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Minister of State for Planning Rao Inderjit Singh here today.

The Ministers took stock of the various aspects of NPR and Aadhar, how to avoid duplication between the two and discussed about the suggestion of marriage of NPR and Aadhar schemes, a Home Ministry official said.

The Home Ministry has already suggested that the NPR and Aadhar schemes should be merged under the Registrar General of India (RGI) or division of work between the two should be in such a way that enrolment is done entirely by NPR while UIDAI, which runs Aadhar, carried out de-duplication ahead of generating the unique number.

The issue will be followed up by the Secretaries of the Ministries concern in the coming days to take it forward.

Incidentally, the UPA's flagship Aadhar scheme was earlier criticised by a parliamentary standing committee, headed by BJP leader Yashwant Sinha, over its duplication with NPR exercise and security concerns arising out of its enrolment process, particularly its introductory system, and security of Aadhar data in private hands.

The Home Minister has already set a three-year deadline to identify genuine Indian citizens through the NPR project. The government also wants enumerators to conduct door-to-door verification across the country and issue NPR cards only to Indian nationals.

It is also planning to link NPR to voting rights, which means election identity cards would not be the sole document for eligibility to vote, officials said.