India may have 500 million smart card users in the next four years if government came out with the notification on smart cards standardisation technology soon.
Ten states had either floated tenders or were in the process of inviting tenders for supplying smart cards for vehicle registrations and driving licences when a public interest litigation on smart card standards stalled the process, A Prabhakar, president, Smart Card Forum of India, said.
He said if this was sorted out with a notification soon, then the user base could touch 500 million in the next four years.
The smart card user base in India is about 30 million.
Out of this expected 500 million, demand for 60 million cards was expected to come from telecom companies in the form of SIM cards by 2005 and most of the remaining were likely to come from vehicles registration and driving licences, he said.
He hoped the government would soon come out with the notification on going ahead with current standardisation practice. The government has formed a technical committee to look into the issues raised in the PIL.
The states which have decided to go for smart cards include Maharashtra, Gujarat, UP, MP, Nagaland and Delhi.
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