Start Unique Card early, Raman tells Nilekani

     Raipur, January 20, 2010: Chief Minister Dr Raman Singh today told the Chairman of the Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI) Nandan Nilekani to start making the identification card for the citizen of Chhattisgarh as early as possible.

     “Chhattisgarh Don’t have time. We wanted to start the process as early as possible as the entire process would take a lot of time to prepare the Unique Identity Card to all the over 2.1 Crore citizen of the state,” the Chief Minister told Nilekani here.

     Singh in clear terms told Nilekani and his team that the state wanted to cut the procedural delay and as quickly as possible wanted to take advantage of the Unique Card to reach out to the actual beneficiaries of its ambitious developmental schemes, top officials told ChhattisgarhTopNews.Com.

     Chhattisgarh wanted the Cards early as the state was providing benefits to a larger sections of the society through the food security programme to poor, free schemes to tribals, benefits to farmers and even the forest dwellers like providing them shoes and other benefits to Scheduled Caste and Other Backward Classes of the society.

     It was the first ever visit by Nilekani to Chhattisgarh after taking over charges of the UIDAI and during his meeting with Singh at his residence, Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister N Baijendra Kumar and Principal Secretary Finance and Planning Ajay Singh were also present besides officials from the UIDAI.