New Delhi, July 10
The Centre is considering to issue multi-purpose national identity cards (MNICs) to all citizens.
“Every person in the country will be provided national identity cards and given a unique national identity number,” Home Minister Shivraj Patil said while inaugurating a seminar on Census data dissemination here.
A pilot project covering 30 lakh population spread over 13 states and union territories is on. Its basic aim is to create a national population register which will have both the national register of Indian citizens and that for non-citizens.
The country’s population is expected to overtake that of the most populous country China in 2035.
The MNIC project, the minister said, would not only enhance the security cover of the country but also facilitate the national level e-governance programme which is one of the important agenda items of the Common Minimum Programme to ensure that government services reach people in every nook and corner.
The minister said the issue of giving voting rights to the citizens of Indian origin overseas would be examined by the government in all seriousness.
The new government was also in the process of looking at the issue of dual passport to the NRIs.
Meanwhile, expressing concern over population explosion, Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat today said Sanjay Gandhi’s five-point programme, including population control, was a good one but failed due to its improper implementation.
“Sanjay Gandhi’s programme was good but due to the atrocities committed by the bureaucracy it could not be implemented,” Mr Shekhawat said here.
He was inaugurating a conference on bio-diesel, organised by an Allahabad-based NGO, Utthan, at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute.
According to the latest estimates by the United Nations, India will overtake China in 2035 when it reaches a population of 146 crore, which is about 50 per cent more than the population at the turn of this century, he said.
Mr Patil said in the past decade, there was an appreciable decline in the growth rates in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and West Bengal.
