[Reader-list] Excerpts from a speech delivered by the President of India, Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil to Parliament

[Taha Mehmood]

Dear All

Following excerpts are culled from an Address by the President of
India, Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil to Parliament on the occasion of
the  Joint Session of 15th Lok Sabha in New Delhi. The excerpts relate
to identity cards.

1. The Unique Identity Card scheme for each citizen will be
implemented in three years overseen by an Empowered Group. This would
serve the purpose of identification for development programmes and
security.

2. Provision of scholarships and social security schemes through
accounts in post offices and banks and phased transition to smart
cards;

3. Targeted identification cards would subsume and replace omnibus
Below Poverty Line (BPL) list. NREGA has a job card and the proposed
Food Security Act would also create a new card. Identification of
beneficiaries for other programmes which currently use the omnibus BPL
list would improve identification based on programme objectives with
the common underlying principle that all identification of
beneficiaries will be done through gram sabhas and urban local bodies
and the list placed in the public domain to be open to challenge;

The complete text of the address could be accessed here-
http://www.hinduonnet.com/nic/presidentjointsession.htm

Warm regards

Taha