The meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saw a number of ministers questioning the need for these cards when UIDAI cards were in the process of being issued.
Some ministers are understood to have pointed that getting an additional identity card issued after Aadhar and election photo identity card could prove to be a problem for the people.
Some ministers are learnt to have asked whether the Resident I Card - a part of the ongoing National Population Register exercise - will supersede other certificates of domicile and identity.
The proposed multipurpose Resident Identity Card will be embedded with an encrypted microprocessor chip containing demographic and biometric details of every adult resident of India.
The Rs 5,552 crore project seeks to issue cards to 820 million residents.
Encrypted card readers will be the size of credit card machines. An official had carried one such machine to the Cabinet meeting.
