Cabinet to take final call on future of UID today

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The future of India's ambitious project Aadhar that aims to give every Indian a unique identity will be decided this evening by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Cabinet colleagues.

According to media reports, the Cabinet Committee is likely to meet to take the final decision on the proposal to give statutory powers to Nandan Nilekani-led UIDAI to issue national identity cards to the entire population instead of the mandated 200 million.

Home Minister P Chidambaram has sought clarity on the status on who will capture bio-metric data - RGI or UIDAI. The Home Ministry feels the data collected by UIDAI is not secure as it is not verified by a government servant, the report added.

The data collection by UIDAI has been done by hired organisations which is a cause of concern for the Home Minister.