UID for 600 mn people in four years, says Nilekani

The Centre has set a target of enrolling 600 million persons in the next four years for the unique identification (UID) numbers, Nandan Nilekani Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) said on Friday.

"It is a very challenging task to cover 1.2 billion people. In the next four years, our target is to enroll 600 million people," he said on the sidelines of a function at the Doon School in Dehradun.

He said so far only 3 million people have been covered in the country since the project was launched by the Centre.

For providing the logistics, the Centre is setting up a management service provider for preparing a data bank of the entire project, he said.

He also said the work for the UID project has already started in Himalayan states like Himachal Pradesh. However, he said there is no deadline to complete the project since it will be covering a whopping population of more than 1.2 billion. "It will be a big challenge for us to cover the entire population of India," he said.

The total expenditure on the project was Rs 100 per head.