Information Madness

Just like other 56 countries around the world, which have some form of national identity cards, Indias will soon have Unique Identification Card or Citizens ID. It is an aim to assign a unique identification number to each of the over one-billion citizens in the country. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday appointed outsourcing guru Nandan Nilekani to head a new agency tasked with creating a national identification database.

This project will allow each Indian to receive much-needed identification for services such as bank accounts, and let the government filter out illegal immigrants more easily. The government created the national ID agency in February, allocating it an initial $20 million. It is estimated that this gigantic and complex exercise will involve an expenditure of over Rs 1.5 lakh crore.

The first step in issuing ID cards is building a complete computerized record of all citizens above the age of 18. It needs to be computerized so that it is accessible and it can be updated constantly. The task is being done by the Registrar General of India (RGI) under the home ministry, because they have the requisite experience after all, the RGI carries out the census every decade. In fact, this database is going to be generated along with the next Census, slated for 2011. It will be called the National Population Register.

The unique ID number will not substitute other existing numbers a person may have (PAN, passport number, ration card number). Rather, it will be an additional, unique number to be cited along with existing numbers for different purposes. This will help weed out duplicate and ghost cards that are widespread today (notably in BPL ration cards), and, may be, benami bank accounts and property deeds.

Instead of issuing cards, the Nilekani team will make available a unique ID database to all ministries and other partners, who can then integrate their databases (covering passports, ration cards, job cards, PAN cards) with the unique ID database. Some may issue biometric cards integrating the unique number with other existing numbers. The home ministry may issue a biometric card for weeding out illegal immigrants, and the rural development ministry may want a biometric card for transferring cash to the poor.

According to the present status of the project, the first UID issuance will take 12 to 18 months from the date of sanction of the project in August (2009). It is likely to cover about 600 million people within five years,” Nilekani told reporters

Delhi as a state is much ahead in this respect than other states. With utilisation of this database (of Mission Convergence) the authority would be in a position to issue unique ID numbers to the residents of Delhi within three years,” Nilekani said.

Unique ID number will be issued to all residents of the country including children and students. “Unique ID would be able to retrieve information in respect of name, date of birth, address, parents’ names and bio-metric details including all fingerprints.

Keep checking this space for more upto date information on India's National Unique ID numbers