TN to issue biometric ration cards

Tamil Nadu will be the first state to introduce biometric ration cards in India. The state food department is gearing up for issuing biometric ration cards to all the 1.97 crore ration card holders in Tamil Nadu latest by June 2011. Through an external agency, it would carry out door-to-door data collection for this purpose, said a highly placed source in the government. These cards will have details like photos, prints of all fingers and high-resolution images of the iris (pattern-recognition techniques are used to identify high-resolution images of the iris, which is unique to every individual) of all the members in the family who are above three years of age. Iris identification technology is considered far superior to fingerprint technology in eliminating duplication. At present, ration cards carry only photos of heads of families.
Based on a request from the state government, the central government has also offered to fund 50% of the biometric ration card project, which is expected to cost roughly Rs 300 crore. Union home minister P Chidambaram, in a letter sent to chief minister M Karunanidhi recently, expressed Centre’s willingness to part-fund the state government project. A cost-sharing formula is being worked out because the Census Commissionerate and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) also need the same biometric database (of people above 15 years of age) for issuing unique identification number (UID) and citizen’s identity cards. Instead of duplicating the effort, these agencies have chosen to accept Tamil Nadu government’s offer to share the data.
But contrary to what other states — which would collect biometric data from the UIDAI and Census Commissionerate — would do, in the case of Tamil Nadu, the state would provide such data to the two central agencies. Since the central government has engaged Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) for collecting and processing biometric data for the UID, the state government is also working out modalities to entrust the works with the same agency, the official said.A formal agreement between the Census Commissionerate and the state food department to work jointly on the biometric data collection is expected to be signed early August.