The Cabinet Committee on Unique Identification Authority of India, at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, approved the commencement of phase-II of the scheme at an estimated cost of Rs 3,023.01 crore (Rs 30.23 billion).
The government on Tuesday gave in-principle approval for adoption of standardised approach for collection of demographic and biometric attributes, including iris scan, of residents by various bodies for the UID project.
Pandey is a Maharashtra cadre IAS officer of 1984 batch.
The Bill neither plans to make the Aadhar mandatory or limit its issuance to citizens.
The government will push for the passage of a long-pending bill to provide statutory status to the Unique Identification Authority of India in the winter session of Parliament.
The prime minister's office will play the principal role in decision-making.
There are unprecedented political implications of identification based on 'biological attributes of an individual', such as employed by Aadhaar, warns Gopal Krishna.
Aadhaar, an ambitious initiative of the previous government, has been used to initiate mandatory attendance for government officials, prisoner identification and by linking it to passports, mobile SIM cards and provident fund accounts.
'This updated NPR database along with Aadhaar Number would become the mother database and can be used by various government departments...' the home ministry declared in July 2015. 'UID/Aadhaar has been used as a fish bait to ensnare and entrap present and future generations of citizens,' warns Gopal Krishna.
Aadhaar now has legal backing but it still faces challenges of privacy and data sharing
Policy lays out a 5-year road map seeking creation of 3.5 mn jobs and promoting 10,000 start-ups.
Still to recover from their electoral rout, defeated Congress members of Parliament and ministers are now faced with the heart-wrenching job of moving out of their official houses, says Rediff.com contributor Anita Katyal
The UIDAI, set up in 2009, will manage the generation and authentication of Aadhaar numbers.
Since 2004, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, one of the commission's longest serving deputy chairmen, has been trying to mould it to fit into the new economic order, without much to show for his efforts.
Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia vacates his post on November 30 and Expenditure Secretary Ajay Narayan Jha, the second seniormost bureaucrat in the finance ministry, retires on January 31, the day before Jaitley presents the 2019-20 interim budget.
Offloading shares in ONGC, CIL, NHPC may fetch govt more than the year's target.
Former chairman of the UIDAI Nandan Nilekani, elucidates how Aadhaar could become the spine for alternative banking and could replace government services with cash benefits.
Nowhere on the planet, nowhere in mankind's history has such an idea taken the concrete shape in form of a law. The National Food Security Bill, which will come via ordinance and not after the debate in Parliament, is an incredible economic tool to tackle the hunger of poor Indians. Also, it has already been condemned widely as a political gimmick.
New Delhi bureaucrats, accustomed to leisurely lunches, golf in the afternoon and long weekends, have been shaken out of their somnolence, say authors. Fear and suspicion hang heavy over the red-sands.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances