1 mn a day expected to enroll for UID from Oct

One million Indian residents are expected to enroll for unique identity (Aadhaar) number every day from this October,  chairman of Unique Identity and Development Authority of India Nandan M Nilekani, said on Thursday.

"As UIDAI scales up the systems both at the back-end by adding more technologies and at the front by adding more enrollment stations, it's confident of achieving this goal," he said.

Speaking at a conference with the theme "Next Generation Service Delivery -- Enabled by Aadhaar", organised by National Association of Software and Services Companies and UIDAI, Nilakani said as of now 95 lakh (9.5 million) people have been issued with Aadhaar numbers.

Another UIDAI official said the figure is expected to cross 1 crore (Rs 10 million) on Thursday.

Nilekani said plans are on track to issue Aadhaar numbers to 600 million (60 crore) people in three to three-and-half years.

He said the entire enrollment infrastructure would stabilise in the next few months, adding, UIDAI has built a massive biometrics-based capabilities.

"We are very comfortable that in the next few months, we will have critical mass of people around the country who will have Aadhaar numbers with them," he said.

He said UIDAI would create for the first time in the country a national devices' infrastructure, which is inter-operable.

Nilekani said devices compliant with Aadhaar standards, -- whether they are in bank branches, or kirana stores or post offices or in schools or public health centres or anywhere -- would be inter-operable.

This

means that one can withdraw money from a PC in post office from one's bank account elsewhere.

"This kind of inter-operability across different delivery points...is the first time it's going to happen (in the country)," Nilekani said.

He said Aadhaar numbers would help people in having 'portable health records' -- that logs their visits to hospitals -- which can be 'locked and unlocked' only by them so that the privacy is maintained.

UIDAI would create a national online identity management platform. With Aadhaar numbers, people have online and 'portable' identity which can be authenticated and verified by across the internet and through mobile phones.

"Aadhaar will increasingly be the basic 'Know Your Customer for a wide variety of products and services," he said.

He said RBI and the Finance Ministry have already notified Aadhaar numbers to be "KYC" for opening bank accounts, Department of Telecom has notified it to be "KYC" for getting SIM card or phone connection and Oil companies for LPG connection.

Sikkim and Tripura have notified that Aadhaar would be the basis for proof or identity, house address and for availing government services.

Increasingly in the next two-three years, Aadhaar would be the KYC to access a wide variety of products and services, Nilekani said.

"In other words, if you have Aadhaar number, that's sufficient proof of identity, sufficient proof of address and sufficient KYC to access that."

Image: Nandan Nilekani