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The Unique Identification Authority of India is sorting out the issue of delays in delivery of Aadhaar (unique identification number) to individuals with its logistics partner (the post offices).
“Yes. There is a delay, not in generation of the number, but the letter delivery,” said Mr Nandan Nilekani, Chairman of the authority. The delay is due to printing and despatch issue, he said.
The authority is to soon launch e-Aadhaar, which will deliver numbers online, he told newspersons on the sidelines of three-day Nasscom India Leadership Forum 2012, which concluded on Thursday.
Six-week break
The authority's mandate is to issue residents a unique identification number linked to the resident's demographic and biometric information, which they can use to identify themselves anywhere in India and access a host of benefits and services. Mr Nilekani said the authority will take a six-week hiatus to refresh and look at its entire technology, process and security to ensure things are smooth when the authority starts rolling out the second phase of enrolling 400 million from April, he said.
“Our first goal was to reach 200 million people. We have reached that goal. The government has given a mandate to enroll another 400 million. We think, we are moving very well. “We need to cover the total 600 million by 2014. We will stick to that commitment.” Mr Nilekani said that authority was coordinating with the Home Ministry on the project.
“We have an excellent strategy going forward and it has been worked out with the Union Cabinet.”The former head of Infosys said the authority's goal is really the Government and not the private sector. The Government's mandate is to use Aadhaar to improve delivery of public governance. “We will focus on things that will help the common man.”
Mr Nilekani said that pilots are going on with regard to NREGA along with the Ministry of Rural Development Jharkhand; with oil companies on LPG distribution in Mysore; opening bank accounts in Tumkur and there is one proposed for mobile verification in Hyderabad.
Apart from enrolment, the big shift that the authority sees in future is towards application so that this will become useful to the common man, he said.
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