Enrollment of 400 mn for UID to begin soon

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) would start enrolling 400 million people for the issuance of Aadhaar numbers next month, its Chairman Nandan M Nilekani said here at the weekend. “We will restart enrollment of about 400 million people in April,” he told reporters here, adding, “We will do (enrollment of) about two crore (20 million) a month.”

The UIDAI has enrolled 200 million people so far, of which 135 million have already been issued Aadhaar numbers, while the process is on to clear the backlog vis-a-vis the remaining 65 million people. “To get an Aadhaar number, it requires each person’s biometric to be compared against all of them (others) to remove duplications. That requires a lot of processing. So that processing we do about 1 million a day. That’s why it takes some time to clear the backlog,” Nilekani said.

“As of now (after enrolling 200 million people), we have taken a break. We want to check everything, all our processes, to make sure if we want to fine-tine something,” he said.

“I am very satisfied with the progress.” Nilekani said, UIDAI has got necessary funds, noting that the Expenditure Finance Committee of the Finance Ministry has at its last sitting approved Rs 8,000 crore.

He said many applications are possible under the Aadhaar project, including in the fields of financial inclusion and public distribution reforms.

“We have integrated Aadhaar with Aakash (low-cost tablet PC),” Nilekani said.