Days after shooting off a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking clarity on the issue, Chidambaram said, “There were media reports about a conflict between the Home Ministry and the UIDAI, but they are not true.”

The government planned to incorporate Aadhaar numbers in the future resident ID cards of the National Population Register (NPR), Chidambaram said, launching the distribution of smart cards under NPR for coastal villages in Tamil Nadu at Pattipulm village.

Fully backing Aadhaar, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said: “We regard it as a very important national project that will enable much greater efficiency in the operation of a large number of government schemes.”