Home Ministry inflicts blow for UID; calls data unreliable

New Delhi, Jan 20: With Nandan Nilekani's Unique Identification (UID) project hitting a roadblock, the row between UID Chairperson Nilekani and Home Minister P Chidambaram has gone from bad to worse. It has been reported that the Home Ministry has written to the Cabinet Secretary seeking clarification on who will do the enrollment.

In the note written by the Home Ministry, the Home Secretary has mentioned that the UID data is not reliable and backed the claim stating that anyone can get themselves registered under any name with any address. The note added that the UID does not accept the data from the Home Ministry since it sees the ministry as a competitor.

The Home Ministry in a letter to the PM said that a decision in this regard need to be taken soon as the present situation is causing delays and embarrassments.

Chidambaram had stirred a hornet's nest by saying that the biometric census done by the UID project did not pass security criteria. He had said, "The possibility of fake identity profile in the UID data is real."

The Ministry of Home had argued that the UID can be generated without proper verification of documents. The Registrar General and Census Commissioner also laid their claims by citing that the job of collecting biometric data should be theirs.

OneIndia News