[Reader-list] News Items posted on the net on Multipurpose National Identity Cards-95

[Taha Mehmood]

http://www.kashmirnewz.net/n000320.html

India testing Smart I-card project

New Delhi, Thursday February 28, 2008:

India is planning to issue a Multipurpose National Identity Card
(MNIC), also referred to as Smart Card to its citizens.

The project envisages providing unique National Identity Number (NIN)
to each person in the National Population Register.

However given the complexities involved in registering and issuing
cards to its more than one billion citizens, an experimental project
has been undertaken in selective areas, the Indian government said
Wednesday.

A pilot project, under which identity (smart) cards are being issued
to the adult citizens, has been under implementation on experimental
basis covering a population of 3 million in the selected areas in 12
States and one Union Territory, India's junior minister for Home
Affairs, Manikrao Gavit informed the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of
the country's bicameral parliament Wednesday.

The production and distribution of identity cards would to be
completed by March this year and the scheme would be implemented in
the entire country in the light of the experiences of the pilot
project, Gavit said.

Earlier in January the local government in Indian capital New Delhi
tried to make carrying of Identity cards mandatory for its citizens.

The plan met stiff opposition from neighbouring north Indian states,
from where a large number of migrants flock to the metropolis looking
for jobs.