Digital census in 2021: Amit Shah moots idea of multipurpose ID card

New Delhi, Sep 23: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday mooted the idea of a multipurpose identity card for citizens with all utilities like Aadhaar, passport, driving licence and bank accounts.

Shah also said the Census 2021 data will be collected through mobile app.

The Home Minister said there should also be a system that when a person dies, the information is updated in the population data automatically.

"We can have just one card for all utilities like Aadhaar, passport, bank account, driving licence, voter card. This is a potential," he said.

Announcing that the Centre plans to spend ₹12,000 crore on the 2021 Census as well as the preparation of the National Population Register (NPR), Amit Shah said the Census 2021 data will be collected through a mobile app.

"A mobile app will be used in Census 2021. It will be a transformation from paper census to digital census," Shah said championing the usage of digital technology for the upcoming Census. The previous Census exercise of 2011 was a paper-based one.

The home minister said there should also be a system that when a person dies, the information is updated in the population data automatically.

The Centre has decided to prepare an NPR by September 2020 to lay the foundation for rolling out a citizens' register across the country. Once the NPR is completed, it is likely to lay the basis a pan-India National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise to be rolled out, on lines of the one that was carried out in Assam.

"Population census is an exercise that helps to provide people the benefits of the government schemes. National Population Register (NPR) will help government solve many issues in the country...the Census 2011 data used for Ujjwala Yojana to increase domestic LPG cylinder coverage," Shah said.