Along with the census 2011, work for database for ambitious unique identification project will also begin which will result in national identity number (NIN) to be given to all the residents above age of 15 of the country, census director of Gujarat state Manish Bhardwaj said.
"We will first begin the house listing operation in April 2010, and all the houses will be assigned a number by 1.5 lakh teachers to be involved in the exercise," he said.
Normally, after house listing, population enumeration operation is undertaken and subsequently census is declared after the operation. But this time, national population register will be done before population enumeration.
"In national population register, each individual of above 15 years and is resident of the country irrespective of the nationality, will be registered with his/her finger prints, bio metric details and a photograph in a separate form," Bhardwaj said, while explaining the project yesterday.
"Once the database in national population register is prepared, it will be handed over to the unique identification authority which will undertake the exercise of de-duplication and verification of the database collected from across the country," he said.
Bharwadaj said the authority which is headed by technocrat Nandan Nilekani, will assign a unique number to each individual of above 15 and a smart card will be issued which will have the person's unique number, photograph, finger prints and other details.
The smart card will be issued at the district magistrate (DM) level and it will be made a routine official procedure which means, it will be issued on regular basis to the new entrants.
Moreover, said Bhardwaj, the unique number will be used for passport and other official purposes subsequently.
"However, the smart card will not give entitlement to the citizenship of the country. It will be issued to all the residents of the country irrespective of the nationality and it will be mentioned on the card itself that the card holder is not entitled to the citizenship of the country," he said.
He added that after the national population register, population enumeration exercise will be undertaken in February 2011 for the census.
