India’s Home Ministry has proposed issuing smart biometric resident ID cards through its National Population Register (NPR), a move which some say is duplicating the fforst of the UIDAI program.

As reported by The Economic Times, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is putting together a group of ministers to explore whether or not these programs duplicate efforts. They’ll have to decide whether the Aadhaar’s UIDAI is an ID number or a card and whether or not the NPR program would simply duplicate the UIDAI’s database of biometric information.

The NPR card stems from the Citizenship Act, which mandates the creation of a National Citizenship register. The cards include a citizen’s photograph, biometrics and a 64 KB smart chip. They’ve already started being issued in the coastal areas and other border areas that have security concerns.

Some ministers believe that Aadhar is a number that is linked to an online identity, and not a card. This number may be able to be incorporated into the NPR card.

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