[Reader-list] News Items posted on the net on Multipurpose National Identity Cards-40

[Taha Mehmood]

http://www.hindu.com/2007/05/26/stories/2007052601511300.htm

The Hindu
Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 26, 2007

National identity card scheme to be launched today

Special Correspondent

Plan to disburse two million cards to those above 18 years

NEW DELHI: The ambitious Multipurpose National Identity Card (MNIC)
scheme will become operational on Saturday with the Government
scheduled to release the first set prepared under the pilot project
initiated four years ago.

The MNIC boasts of being a tamper-proof plastic card with data in
visible zone and details in a microprocessor chip that requires a
reader to peruse the data it contains.

The card would give the citizen a 16-digit ID number and would be
delivered by India Post in a tamper-proof customised cover that is
both waterproof and able to sustain extreme temperatures.

Rs. 45-crore project

Registrar General of India Devender Kumar Sikri told The Hindu that
the Rs. 45-crore project planned to provide two million cards to
people above 18 years in 13 districts across 12 States and the Union
Territory of Puducherry.

After the official launch on Saturday, the MNIC centre hopes to
despatch cards to two of the three million people in these districts
over the next three months. A consortium of public sector companies
viz. Bharat Electronics Limited at Delhi and Mumbai, Electronics
Corporation of India Limited at Kolkata and Indian Telephone
Industries, Chennai, have coordinated with the MNIC.

The microprocessor chip, provided by Philips, would work on system
developed by the National Informatics Centre and is embedded in the
plastic card designed by the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.
It can be read offline and at present it will be available at police
stations. Individuals too can purchase the reader.

Explaining the features of the16 kB chip, M. Loganathan of BEL and J.
Sundara Rao of ECIL, said it had three specific usages, validation,
updating and additional applications, for which some 6 KB to 8 KB
space would be available. It would contain biometric data of the
cardholder.

S.K. Chakrabarti, Deputy Director General of MNIC, at the Registrar
General of India, has been coordinating at the Government end.

The card itself would carry digital signatures of two officials. Mr.
Sikri said at present the Government was paying Rs. 60 a card, but
with volumes the price could come down.

While the pilot project was launched in November 2003, The Citizenship
Act, 1955, was amended in December 2003, to provide for compulsory
registration of all citizens and issue of a national identity card.

The pilot project was launched in Jammu and Kashmir, Gujarat,
Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, West
Bengal, Tripura, Goa, Delhi and Tamil Nadu.