Govt planning I-cards for all citizens TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, 2002 8:31:03 PM ] NEW DELHI: Identity cards for all citizens, a Rs 15,000-crore National Rail Vikas Yojana and a national commodities exchange were among the 15 key initiatives announced by the government on Thursday. The home ministry will prepare a plan to issue multi-purpose machine-readable identity cards to all citizens. A pilot project, which will be launched in October to cover select districts in eight states, will also facilitate the implementation of e-governance initiatives to be completed within a year.The Rail Vikas Yojana will over the next five years aim to remove all capacity bottlenecks in critical sections of the Railways, including a Rs 8,000-crore project to strengthen the Golden Quadrilateral to run more long-distance mail, express and freight trains at a higher speed, and a Rs 3,000-crore project to strengthen rail connectivity to ports and development of corridors to the hinterland.Rs 3,500 crore will be spent on constructing two bridges over the Ganga and one each over the Brahmaputra and the Kosi. The consumer affairs, food and public distribution ministry will set up a National Commodities Exchange to streamline commodity futures trading. All villages will be electrified by 2007 and 130 lakh new telephone lines, including 75 lakh mobile telephones, will be added in the coming year. A comprehensive social security scheme for the poor and the middle class and a food-based social security for the destitute will be launched. The communication and IT ministry will implement a programme to improve efficiency, transparency and accountability at the government-citizen interface, with the e-bill post and internet-based e-post service network to cover all districts in the coming year. Media Lab Asia, a collaboration between the IT department and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US, will be set up to address the digital divide in the country. The government also announced formulating a model municipal law to facilitate private sector participation in urban infrastructure projects, especially in water supply and sanitation. Simultaneously, a fund will be operationalised this year to promote urban sector reforms with special focus on making urban local bodies viable. National scholarships will be given to disabled persons to pursue higher technical education. The culture ministry will launch the National Mission for Manuscripts to preserve and unlock the scientific, intellectual, literary and spiritual knowledge in different Indian languages. The ministry of petroleum and other ministries concerned will take steps to universalise blending of ethanol from various feedstocks, including sugar factories, with petrol and diesel. Sale of gasohol will become mandatory in nine states and four Union territories from January 1, 2003. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?artid=19185813 A.Roy says,"dont listen." http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?artid=19207425