ID card agency to rope utilities to enroll people - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) chief Nandan Nilekani has said that various banks, tax authorities, utilities and other service providers would be roped in to enroll people for the issue of unique identification numbers. Talking to reporters here on Wednesday, Nilekani said: "UIDAI will roll out the gigantic scheme in one-and-a-half year's time and would cover 600 million people in five-and-a-half years. "We have lots and lots of agencies that issue some kind of a product to the people and we see them as our registrar, they will help us to enroll into a system, which means that NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), which is a partner, says that for a particular date in future they want all their job cards to have UID then anybody comes for a job card but doesn't have a UID, NREGA will enroll that person on our behalf," he added. Nilekani said the UIDAI would not issue any ID card to the 1.2 billion people across the country but the various agencies could issue the biometric card mentioning the UID Number to individuals for which the agency could charge nominal fees. "It is not a card, it is just a number. If the agency issuing the number has a fee then they will charge. Like for example Pan Card, if they charge a fee, then they may charge, but for the poor, hopefully, there will not be any charge," he said. The government has allocated rupees one billion to the UIDAI in the current budget to March 2010. The Unique Identification Number is an innovative project of the Central Government whereby every bonafide citizen will have a unique identification, biometric signature and other details. It aims to eliminate the need for multiple identification mechanism prevalent across various government departments and ensure that each Indian citizen will carry a permanent identifier from birth to death.