NILEKANI 2 LAST

The sheer enormity of the project could be gauged by the
fact that currently similar databases of 120 million
identities are available and UIDAI is in the process of
building a register of 1.2 billion people, Nilekani said.

The database would be developed in partnership with the
government and private agencies across the country, he said.

These agencies, including mobile service providers,
cooking gas outlets, passport offices, National Rural
Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and PDS authorities, would
act as registrars or enrollers for the UIP.

The details of persons approaching any of the above
points of contact will be stored in the Central ID Data
Repository (CIDR).

The CIDR will contain basic information like name, date
and place of birth, gender, name of father and mother and
their UID numbers, address, photograph and fingerprints.

The system will have an inbuilt mechanism to avoid
duplication of data and the CIDR will perform a search on key
demographic fields of the applicant before accepting the data.

Nilekani said the first set of unique identity numbers
will be issued in the next 12-18 months and the UIDAI plans to
cover 600 million people within four years from the start of
the project.

Elimination of duplicate identities under various schemes
is expected to save the national exchequer of over Rs 20,000
crore every year, Nilekani said. PTI