Nilekani tours to demystify ID plan

December 20, 2009 at 8:54 pm | Posted in In the public domain, Nandan Nilekani, News Articles on ID cards | Comments Off on Nilekani tours to demystify ID plan

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091215/jsp/nation/story_11865073.jsp

Nilekani tours to demystify ID plan
ARCHIS MOHAN
Nandan Nilekani

New Delhi, Dec. 14: If India’s plan to get each of its 60 crore adult citizens a unique identification number sounds puzzling to many, Nandan Nilekani has been touring the states to demystify it for anybody who will listen.

After taking over as chairperson of the Unique Identification Authority of India in July, the former Infosys honcho has travelled to 16 states, meeting chief ministers, bureaucrats, lawyers, venture capitalists, industry bodies, even doctors.

He plans to finish meeting the policy makers of all the states and Union territories by February. On Wednesday, he will explain the project to the country’s MPs.

“We do not want the enterprise to be Delhi-centric. We decided we would go and meet the stakeholders rather than organise conferences in Delhi,” an official said.

Mindful of working on a tight budget, the authority has decided that Nilekani and a senior official travelling to the states is cheaper than holding conferences in Delhi.

The authority hopes to start issuing the unique numbers from August 2010. The initial target is to issue the numbers to 5 crore people who voluntarily register with the authority. For that, it will recruit consultants and volunteers.

The volunteers and NGOs will be asked to help create awareness, particularly among the underprivileged. “They will help the enrolment process by addressing misgivings, if any. We will have full-time and part-time volunteers,” an official said.

The modalities are being worked out and will soon be posted on the authority’s website — uidai.gov.in.

The site answers all the frequently asked questions such as how the unique number would reduce the need for sundry government identifications when applying for, say, a bank account, passport or driving licence.

The number will not replace these documents, what it will do is establish a person’s identity authoritatively, relying on biometry. The unique number will have a citizen’s details and fingerprints and can be accessed and verified online from anywhere in the country.

Many people now have more than one identity in government records, which makes it difficult to stop corruption and fraud, such as a citizen acquiring driving licences in different states under false identities. The unique number will also check illegal immigration and make it easier to track criminals operating under aliases and weed out multiple voter I-cards.