Unique ID not mandatory: Nilekani

Mumbai: The implementation of unique identification (UID) will not be mandatory but voluntary, Nandan Nilekani, head of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) said. It is mainly done to enable financial inclusion in the country and bring uniformity, he added.

The UID project will create a mass database with demographic and biometric information that can be used by banks, insurance, issuance of passport and ration cards and similar other players. These players would be the partners of the UID project, Nilekani said while talking about his project for the first time in public at Ficci-IBA Banking conference in Mumbai.

"The UID is just an instrument to identify. It will also identify a person online through a central system across the country. The authenticity of an individual will be done only with a 'yes' or 'no' and so privacy of an individual will be maintained," said Nilekani.

The partners can then go ahead and do additional know your consumers (KYC) according to their requirements. A UID will not provide any specific category, religion or entitlements for an individual and therefore partners will need to go through the additional process on their own.

Nilekani added that the master database will be created after combining the databases of multiple agencies. The UIDAI will partner with multiple registrars like states(food supplies like Ration shops, Panchayat and Education), oil ministry (LPG agencies, oil companies), health insurance( Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY)) and banks.

Nilekani has been time and again talking about coming over dublication in the process and therefore the UID number issuance will be just once in the life time. An individual however can go ahead and bring a change in address, when ever required. He adds that there would be a uniform standards across the systems for enrolment process, biometrics and KYR norms across all the agencies. The project will also provide flexibility to the registrars in terms of delivery and authentification. The UID project will provide a number and then the registrars can provide additional authentication devices like bar codes, smart cards, magnetic stripes or simple cards. The project will have a strategy to enrol entire familities and underserved areas and partners with outreach groups.

Nilekani also added that banks are key partners for UIDAI and can be registrars as well as users of the authentication services. "We would publish the standisation for the banks in the next six month so that when we are ready with the infrastructure, technology, regulations and business prospectives; banks can just ahead and do it immediately. These standisation will make the banks UID-ready."

Nilekani expects the project to start in the next 12-14 months and touch 600 million people in the coming four to five years.