National Population Register to include Aadhaar details.

Registrar General of India will ask UIDAI to verify biometric data of individuals.

The Registrar General of India will ask the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to verify biometrics of individuals for inclusion in the recently revived National Population Register (NPR) programme, instead of collecting them afresh.

A senior home ministry official told ET that this puts an end to the debate on which agency has primacy over collection of biometrics. The contest had almost derailed UIDAI’s Aadhaar project under the United Progressive Alliance-2 government.

According to a recent notification issued by the registrar general and census commissioner of India Vivek Joshi, the NPR will be carried out across the entire country except Assam. “The central government hereby decides to prepare and update the population register and the field work for house to house enumeration throughout the country except Assam for collection of information relating to all persons who are usually residing within the jurisdiction of local registrar shall be undertaken between April 1, 2020, to September 30, 2020,” the notice said.

The development comes amid the exercise to finalise the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, for which the Supreme Court has extended the deadline to August 31.

With several cases reported from many parts of the country of foreign nationals staying back illegally, the government is actively considering implementing a nationwide NRC and deporting illegal immigrants.