Indian Home ministry wants to give all adult residents in the country an identity card that can be read with a hand-held device without requiring net connectivity.
Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajeev Shukla stated this in the Rajya Sabha.
He said the need to create a National Population Register (NPR) and issue Resident Identity Cards (RICs) stemmed from the “internal security system in the country”.
In contrast, the Aadhaar identity scheme was meant for welfare and development functions, he said.
“The RIC would enable both online and offline authentication of identity in a secure manner and will complement the efforts of Aadhaar… Therefore there is no duplication,” he said.