UIDAI chairman allays fears that the cards will legitimise illegal immigrants.
Nandan Nilekani, chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), has allayed fears that the Unique ID (UID) will legitimise illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries.
The UID would only be a foolproof identification of a person and not a document conferring citizenship, he said while interacting with mediapersons on Monday. The UID would curb the misuse of identities and public funds, he said.
Nilekani said the UIDAI was partnering with various government agencies for the UID project. This would ensure that only genuine citizens got the identification proof, he said. He also dismissed apprehensions that the UID would interfere with the privacy of individuals. The UID, he explained, would have both personal and biometric information of a person, such as, name, sex, date of birth, nationality, marital status, current and permanent address, occupation, photo and fingerprints.
The UID cards will be given to every individual above 15 years, including NRIs and foreigners.
The greatest advantage of the UID was that employers or agencies could verify a person’s details online from anywhere.
The UIDAI had formed a joint committee with Census India 2011 to make the census data available in the format needed for UID, the UIDAI chairman said. He said he had toured 25 states and had interacted with several hundred organisations, NGOs, governmental agencies and individuals regarding implementing the UID project.
The UIDAI, a team of 100 people, would take up a massive awareness drive to clear doubts about the UID cropping up from many quarters, Nilekani said.
Addressing members of Credai (Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association-Karnataka) on Monday, Nilekani said their cooperation was needed to cover the 50 million construction workers, who form the second-largest workforce in the country after those employed in agriculture.
Credai members said the workers were not convinced about the need for a UID. They said the UIDAI should help the association undertake a massive campaign to create awareness about UID among the workers. Nilekani said all material and educational clips would be made available to Credai.
He said the exercise would improve delivery of major government welfare programmes and public services, especially to those who were poor and marginalised, like workers in the construction industry.
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