Govt okays plan to untangle NPR-Aadhaar mess

The government has cleared a ` 950-crore plan t o untangle t he Aadhaarnational population register jumble inherited from the UPA government.

The census commissioner, tasked with creating NPR, will conduct a nationwide door-todoor survey over the next one year to link the population database with the 12-digit unique identification number, better known as Aadhaar. Home minister Rajnath Singh approved the plan in June-end, sources said.

At each stop, enumerators — who will have access to the population register — will note down the Aadhaar numbers against each name.

This will mean that if you have an Aadhaar number, you will not have to queue up at NPR camps to register as decided by the previous government.

It will also allow the home ministry to update the population register based on a 2010 survey. “People may have migrated from one place to another... or there would have been births and deaths,” a senior government official said.

The Unique Identification Authority of India has already issued 874 million Aadhaar numbers. Of this, only 200 million have been issued against the home ministry’s NPR database.

The rest have been issued on applications processed by various private entities engaged by the government. But there have been problems.

In Madhya Pradesh’s Bhind district, a dog, too, was recently issued an Aadhaar number, complete with its picture.

The home ministry has been wary of depending on the Aadhaar number alone. The new survey would introduce an element of verification that the Aadhaar process ignored, a ministry official said.

Besides the Aadhaar number, the official who will update the register would also take down mobile phone numbers, passport and election card. It would reduce the government’s dependence on the Aadhaar database for expanding the direct benefit transfer scheme, source said.