The Planning Commission proposed to take a note to the Cabinet on this which was scheduled to meet on Wednesday, its Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said in Thiruvananthapuram.
Seeking to dispel the impression that sharp differences existed between it and the Union Home Ministry over the UIDAI project, the Planning Commission on Monday said it should be allowed to go ahead with steps taken to avoid overlap with the National Population register.
The Planning Commission proposed to take a note to the Cabinet on this which was scheduled to meet on Wednesday, its Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said in Thiruvananthapuram.
"We regard the Aadhaar project as a very important national project that will enable much greater efficiency in the operation of a large number of government schemes," he told reporters.
"If there is a small overlap (with Home Ministry’s National Population Register) that would not matter. There are many government programmes which do similar things and we don't apply the principle that you should not have any overlap," he said.
"One can never avoid controversies because even when there isn't a controversy somebody has to write a nice press report, he said when asked about reports of differences between the Planning Commission and the Home Ministry over the Aadhaar issue.
Noting that he was "very happy to clarify it", Ahluwalia said, "We regard the Aadhaar Project as a very important national project. It is a project that will enable much greater efficiency in the operation of a large number of government schemes. Reduce leakage make things easier etc."
The Aadhaar Project had an approval to go up to a certain level, he said, adding the project authorities were told earlier to try and avoid an overlap with the NPR, which was a completely separate scheme under the Home Ministry.
Now discussions had taken place between the Registrar General's office and the Aadhaar authority to see whether an overlap could be avoided.
"The Home Ministry and the Registrar General's office have said they will not be able to use any data collected by the UIDAI because they have a statutory requirement that only data that each has collected in a particular way can be used. So our view is, of course, that we should not interrupt the Aadhaar process which is going very well," he said.
"May be by modifying the guidelines perhaps the Registrar General will also be able to choose the data from Aadhaar. But if for some reason that is not possible, my position is that the Aadhaar project should be allowed to proceed at its own pace because it's a very crucial project to improve efficiency of number of government programmes," Ahluwalia said.
"The fact is that these are separate projects. The Ministry of Home affairs project has a completely different objective. So we are asking the Cabinet. I hope the Cabinet will decide. This is scheduled at the moment on Wednesday. So I hope we got to go ahead."
When asked about security concerns expressed by the Home Ministry, he said, "You know my understanding is this security concerns are relevant for Home Ministry's project. We are not saying that the Aadhaar project should actually necessarily be used by the Home Ministry."
If they felt they wanted to have a higher level of security concern, they could do that in NPR. "I think the whole idea that each has a video on the other is what we are trying to avoid. We are simply saying the Aadhar project is well conceived for what it is trying to do and basically it should be allowed to work."
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