PM Narendra Modi vouches for Aadhaar, NPR project slow

New Delhi: The tardy progress in biometric enrolment for the National Population Register may be the reason why Prime Minister Narendra Modi is reposing more faith in the Unique Identification Authority of India, which is tasked with issuing a unique 12-digit 'Aadhaar' number to all Indian residents.

Home ministry data shows that the National Population Register (NPR) project has managed less than 10% enrolment in key states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh. "If left to NPR, the biometric enrolments in these states will take 4-5 years to complete. That is quite slow," a senior official said, hinting at why Modi is set to give financial nod to UIDAI to fast-track the enrollments in these states.

 Data shows that the NPR project has been able to complete biometric enrolments of only 40.2 million persons in these four states out of the 335 million people whose demographic details it had digitalised after the Census exercise in 2010.

In view of the delay in enrollments under the NPR, the UPA government had approved in February, albeit without financial nods, a proposal allowing the UIDAI to take over enrolments in these states, which were earlier allotted to the NPR for biometric enrollment.