Home minister Amit Shah moots multipurpose card for Indians

"We do not have a scheme to introduce a multi-purpose identity card but this a possibility," Shah said.

The home minister also noted that the next census in 2021 would be done through a mobile app. He said that a total of Rs12,000 crore would be spend by the government on the 2021 Census and in the preparation of National Population Register (NPR). "A mobile app will be used in Census 2021. It will be a transformation from paper census to digital census," Shah said.

Shah did not elaborate on the NPR or the unique ID card, although he highlighted some of the advantages of these two programmes. Shah said the NPR would list individuals according to their residence and “will help in law and order, controlling crime and for development scheme."

The BJP president said that time has come to automatically link “birth and death registers with the voters roll. "Why can't we link the two and ensure that voters list is automatically updated?" Shah asked.

Underlining the importance of data in the success of welfare measures launched by the government, Shah said, "In 2014 we started thinking differently. The 2011 census was used for Ujawala Scheme - under which gas cylinders were given at subsidised rate to families below the poverty line. Our government used the data to understand who all need Gas Cylinders and where they were living. We made a digital map using the 2011 Census to work out the Ujawala scheme. As many as 21 welfare schemes will be depend on the Census."

The home minister on Friday launched three citizen centric services of the Chandigarh Police, which include the Emergency Response Support System (ERSS - Dial 112), ‘E-Beat Book’ System and the ‘E-Saathi App’. 

Shah observed that the beat officer system has been the cornerstone of the Indian Policing system for ages and through suchCitizen Centric Services, a SMART Police force can be built in the country. He congratulated Chandigarh Police to have taken a lead in introducing such Citizen Centric Services in Policing.

ERSS is one of the key projects of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs under Nirbhaya Fund. It has been designed to play a pivotal role in mitigation or preventing escalation of crime, especially against women and children. ERSS provides a single emergency number (112), computer aided dispatch of field resources to the location of distress. Citizens can send their emergency information through call, SMS, email and through the 112 India mobile app.

The ‘Dial 112’ emergency response service is an initiative to strengthen proactive community policing that would end confusion amongst distress callers, who at times end up dialling 100 in fire or medical emergency cases. Till now, there were more than 20 numbers that were running for the help of public for various emergency situations, which were creating confusion to the distress callers. But after starting this service, public will not face these problems. In future, the Emergency Number for Road Accidents (1073),Women Helpline (1091, 181), Child Help Line (1098), including other Helpline services would be added under the 112 unified emergency response number.

The ‘E-Beat Book’ is a web and mobile based application which will ease the collection, updation and analysis of the information related to crime and criminals in a real time. Chandigarh has been divided in 54 divisions. In each division, there is one ‘Atal Sehbhagita Kendra’ that is under the supervision of a Beat Officer, having an Android Phone to the use the app. The E-Beat Book would be linked with Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS), which would help in a real time updation of crime/criminal data. The citizen can directly approach the‘Atal Sehbhagita Kendra’ for redressal of their grievances and can render their suggestions too.

The ‘E-Saathi’ App would help the general public, including senior citizens, to remain in touch with the police and also give suggestions to facilitate participative community policing (‘Your Police at Your Doorstep’ initiative). The beat officer would be able to provide services like passport verification, tenant verification, servant verification, character certification etc. at a click of a button through the app, without the people needing to visit the police station. With this initiative, on one hand, where the beat officer would become more efficient in his/her working, this would make police-people communication a two-way process, on the other.

These valuable public services would effectively reduce the response time of police to address the distress calls of the public and strengthen the police-public interface endeavour of community policing.