Union Minister for Science and Technology Harsh Vardhan has said that the Central government is firm about making use of DNA profiling in a manner not to leave a single questionable issue of privacy unanswered.
At a media conference here on Sunday, the Minister said this in reply to a question on whether the linking of DNA profiles of accused in criminal cases with Aadhaar was justified.
He also said the profiles will be stored only till the completion of detection of the cases.
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“It will not be a permanent storage,” he said.
He expressed confidence that The DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill, which was introduced in Parliament 10 days ago, will be passed in the winter session.
Reminding that the Bill took 15 years for introduction in Parliament after it was drafted, Dr. Vardhan said the delay was on account of several bottlenecks that had to be addressed.
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Also, it did not progress the way it should have during the UPA regime, he alleged, adding the NDA government got it scrutinised at every stage as it was a sensitive one and gained the approval of the Cabinet.
The government is confident of answering all questions on the Bill in the Parliament and the legislation aims to strengthen forensic activity, investigation of cases and the eco system, the Union Minister pointed out.
New CDFD campus
Earlier, the Minister accompanied by Secretary of Department of Biotechnology (DBT) Renu Swarup and DBT Director A.K. Rawat inaugurated the sprawling new campus of Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD) near the Uppal metro rail station.
The land was earmarked by Survey of India in two non-continuous segments of 16 and 4 acres at its Uppal campus. Dr. Vardhan expressed hope that the CDFD will grow into a world class scientific institution in two years. He praised the contribution of CDFD for quality testing of basmati rice.