Will smart cards curb terrorism?
To keep a tab on
terrorists often mixing with common people, the government has initiated war
footing measures to ensure availability of multipurpose identity cards to all
citizens by 2011.
The National Population Register will be ready
by 2011 and the Multipurpose National Identity Cards will be issued to all
residents in 2011.The project aims at providing a unique national identity
number to each person in the National Population Register, he told reporters
here last evening after assuming office.
However, keeping
in view the complexities involved in both the process and technology, a pilot
project has been under implementation on an experimental basis covering a
population of about 3095,000 lakhs in selected areas in 12 states and one Union
Territory. “The coastal districts and in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the work
has already started.
The identity card
is a smart card having a microprocessor chip. This is a secure card for which
recommendation was made by the Technical Committee constituted by the
government having representatives from National Informatics Centre, IIT Kanpur,
Bharat Electronics Limited, Indian Telephone Industries Limited, Electronics
Corporation of India Limited, Intelligence Bureau and others. Sources said the
implementation of the scheme in the entire country would be based in the light
of the experiences gained and lessons learnt from the pilot project.
The identity smart
cards are being issued to citizens of 18 years and more under the pilot
project. The decision to implement the pilot project in the coastal areas has
been taken keeping in view the aspects relating to enhancement of security in
coastal areas following the Mumbai terror attack as the terrorists came using
the sea route.
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