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. "We can have just one card for all utilities like Aadhaar, passport, bank account, driving licence, voter card. This is a potential," he said.
He also emphasised on the need for NPR in the India. "Population census is an exercise that helps to provide people the benefits of the government schemes. NPR will help government solve many issues in the country… the Census 2011 data used for Ujjwala Yojana to increase domestic LPG cylinder coverage," the Livemint cited Shah.
Shah on Monday also said there should also be a system that when a person dies, the information is updated in the population data automatically.
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Shah also said the Census 2021 data will be collected through mobile app. "A mobile app will be used in Census 2021. It will be a transformation from paper census to digital census," Shah said. He added that the Centre was likely set to spend Rs 12,000 crore on the 2021 Census as well as the preparation of the NPR.
For the 2021 census, will be carried out in 16 languages, the reference date is October 1, 2020, for Jammu and Kashmir and snow-bound areas of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand while for the rest of country, it is March 1, 2021.
Shah said the Census 2021 data will be the base for the country's future planning, development initiatives and welfare schemes and people's wholehearted participation is key to the success of the exercise. "India's total 130 crore population should be informed about its benefits. How the census data could be used for future planning, development initiatives and welfare schemes. The utilisation of census data is multi-dimensional and will be a significant contribution in nation's progress," he said.
The home minister also said the census will help in demarcating boundaries of municipal wards, assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies. He appealed to census officials to carry out the exercises sincerely as this is an opportunity for them to do 'Punya' (holy deed), which will help in nation building. Shah also said the data for the National Population Register (NPR), a list of usual residents of the country, will also be collected along with the census exercise.
Officials said the NPR could be the basis for a pan-India version of Assam's National Register of Citizens (NRC).
Media reports had said that following the Assam NRC, the Centre was keen on preparing a NPR by September 2020 to lay the foundation for rolling out a citizens' register across the country. The NPR will be a list of usual residents of the country. Once the NPR is completed and published, it is expected to be the basis for preparing the National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC), a pan-India version of Assam's National Register of Citizens (NRC), an official was quoted as saying.
(With PTI inputs)
