The Hindu : Multi-purpose identity cards soon: Advani

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 12, 2002

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Multi-purpose identity cards soon: Advani

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI APRIL 11 . The Union Home Minister, L.K. Advani, said here today that the Centre would soon initiate steps to revive the proposal to issue multi-purpose national identity cards to all citizens, which was earlier derailed following reservations expressed by some States.

Speaking to reporters after inaugurating a two-day workshop on `infant mortality' organised by the Registrar General of India (which comes under the Home Ministry) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, he said that he would soon hold consultations with political parties and States to see that the important proposal came through. Not much opposition was expected this time considering that there have been great developments in the IT sector. The earlier move had fallen through after some States expressed reservations on the ground that it was too gigantic a task to issue such a card to each and every citizen.

Mr. Advani said that to begin with a legislation would be required to make the cards mandatory and, consequently, the immediate focus would be on enacting it. He, however, declined to set any timeframe for the project.

Mr. Advani confirmed that the recent events in Gujarat would come up for discussions at the meeting of the BJP national executive beginning at Goa on Friday. "Naturally, the issue would come up," he said, replying to a query. He, however, declined to comment further stating that the statements made by him on the subject had been "interpreted in varying ways''.

He also refused to comment on the statement by the LTTE chief, V. Prabakaran, during his press conference in Sri Lanka on Wednesday that India had a crucial role to play in solving the ethnic conflict in the Island nation.

At the function, he rued that India continued to be a developing nation even though it had all the potentials to be a part of the comity of developed countries and specifically asked the various stakeholders in the health sector to take a pledge to significantly reduce the infant mortality rate, which had remained stagnant at about 70 per 1,000 for the past several years, after having recorded steep declines earlier.

Mr. Adv ani asked the participants of the conference to focus on proper collection of data, as correct statistics was required to ensure right planning.

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