Govt Set To Create Massive Domestic IT Opportunities Through UID
Government announcement in 2008 about establishment of a Unique Identity Authority to simplify things for all citizens hardly aroused any public interest but the recent announcement of Nandan Nilekani joining as chairperson of the Unique Identification Authority of India seems to have lifted the expectations from this project.
What really is UID?
UID (Unique Identification) is a project under which every Indian citizen would be issued one unique identification number that will help in identify him/her. It would make things simple for citizens as all their related information like pan card and ration cards may be attached to their UID number,thus they can apply for services like bank accounts with less formalities and manual paper work to fulfill K-Y-C norms.It would also help the government to track down or keep record of every citizen in the country.
How government plans to implement it?
The Government for this purpose has set-up UID authority,a separate department which will be responsible for creation and maintenance of database related to UID numbers. It would also act as regulatory body responsible for laying down procedures related to issuance and usage of UID. Nandan Nilekani has also been appointed chairperson of the Unique Identification Authority of India. The government has projected to complete the project by 2011.
Creation of domestic IT opportunities
The opportunities arising out of this government’s initiatives would be no less than the current domestic business available for IT giants as a billion Identification cards also incurs cost in billions. The total expenditure of this project to turn into reality is pegged at Rs 1.5 lakh crores, a massive amount in days for dwindling IT sales. The first phase would entail an investment of Rs 6,500 crore to cover mostly urban, and semi-urban populations .
The project would be seeing creation of job opportunities in excess of 100,000 additional jobs in India for next three years. This could also see up-liftment in many supplement sectors and could be a boon for IT sector as they would be getting to par-take in massive domestic opportunities. Domestic market with major government spending helps IT companies to a large extent as they don’t pay dearly for any forex fluctuations. Big IT giants like TCS and CMC with mid level companies like bartronics, vakrangee would reap rich rewards from this announcement.
The governments recent thrust on education and e-governance has already helped in creating domestic IT opportunities and this project could just be a big ticket for $ 44 billion IT industry.
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The number of 1,50,000 Cr looks outrageously high. I read it to be in the range of Rs 10,000 Cr for next 3 yrs, which looks more plausible.
@ Shashi
Rs.10000 crores/100+ crore population brings per card issue prices to rs.100 per citizen which is not feasible for any company to provide…looking at maintenance and remote demographics.
The number also includes total expenditure in maintaining the data in future although could have been a little exaggerated by media sources.
Will the government be able to finish it by 2011. I doubt it. After all giving ID card to 100+ crore people is a massive exercise. If they do start handing out ID’s by Jan ‘10 and continue doing it till Dec ‘11 that would give them 626 days (excluding Sundays) or approx 16L ID/day. I doubt we have the distribution network or the infrastructure to verify the details before handing out ID.
I would rather that the government comes out with a realistic time-line than aim for a deadline that they are sure to miss.
Even if the project is implemented 4-5 years down the line , it is best in interest of nation. But the project should be completed.
There was a similar projects which were initiated by Department of labour in 2002 but which got shelved because of the change in govt.