Bangalore, December 19: As part of his nation-wide tour to seek support for Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), its Chairman Nandan M Nilekani today met Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and held discussions about implementation of the world’s biggest citizen database that would begin in this State.
Mr Nilekani held a hour-long meeting with the Chief Minister and sought the State Government’s cooperation as Karnataka would be the first State where the UID numbers would be issued on a pilot basis from February 2011.
Emerging out of the meeting, Mr Nilekani said he had talks about using the data base now existing in Karnataka and the government’s help in launching the trial blazing initiative.
The Former Infosys Chairman is touring the country meeting the stakeholders to prepare them for the massive exercise of issuing identification number to over a billion people.
Chief Secretary S V Ranganath, Principal Secretary for e-governance M N Vidyashankar, who is also the nodal officer for the project in Karnataka, were among the other top officials who were present in the meeting.
MORE UNI RS GM 1409 BG 5 ADMINISTRATION-UIDAI-NILEKANI TWO LAST BANGALORE(UNEDITED) Sources said the UIDAI Chief, who wants to set up the Authority’s main Technology Centre in the city, discussed about sanction of the land for the facility and the Chief Minister readily accepted to cooperate in this regard.
The project, estimated to cost Rs 30,000 crore, envisage issue of 16-digit numbers to all residents of India based on biometric, fingerprint and demographic information of the people. A biometric committee has already been set up for the purpose.
Karnataka has been chosen as the first state for implementation of the UID project as it has several e-governance projects already implemented. Departments like finance, revenue, rural development and panchayat raj, commercial tax, education, public works, agriculture, home, food and civil supplies and stamps and registration have already adopted e-governance in their day-to-day administration.
—Agencies