[Reader-list] News Items posted on the net on Multipurpose National Identity Cards-121

[Taha Mehmood]

http://www.ptinews.com/pti%5Cptisite.nsf/0/212A0AFBB5E86F17652575CA001EEA94?OpenDocument

	
Govt serious on multi-purpose national ID: Qureshi


		
H S Rao
London, Jun 3 (PTI) Advocating a multi-purpose national identity card
for Indians, Election Commissioner S Y Qureshi has said the Indian
government was keen to introduce the concept to better manage citizen
identity and national security issues.

"We have been pressing the Government of India to have a National
Identity Card. There is serious thinking to have a Single Multipurpose
national Identity Cards," Qureshi said here at an interactive Session
at the House of Commons.

The idea of a Multipurpose National Identity Card (MNIC) was mooted by
the Vajpayee-led NDA government in 2002, and later taken up by the UPA
government.

Aimed at addressing national security, the problem of illegal
immigration and managing citizen identity, the project has been set in
motion by the government which approved the setting up of a National
Authority for Unique Identity under Planning Commission to oversee it.

Delivering a lecture on the recent elections in India, Qureshi said
while in the last elections 82 per cent of the 714 million voters were
provided ID cards, in the next election 100 per cent voters would be
covered.

Asked why the election was a "too long-drawn affair" with polling
spread over five phases lasting nearly a month, Qureshi said: "If we
had enough security forces, we can hold the elections in one day." PTI