The State Bank of Mysore (SBM) hopes to use its position as the registrar for Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) or Aadhaar as a way to increase its business.
With the Bangalore regional office of UIDAI all set to begin issuing the unique identification numbers to residents in Karnataka from October 8, SBM is sniffing a big growth opportunity in its business. The Bangalore region of ther UIDAI covers the states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and the union territories of Puducherry and Lakshadweep.
To begin with the authority will start enrolling the citizens in two places in Tumkur and Mysore districts of Karnataka. The project will be launched across the state from January 1, 2011 and cover the entire state by December 2011, Ashok Dalwai, deputy director general, UIDAI said.
“We will be finalising the tenders for other districts of the state very shortly and launch the project across the state from January. We are also getting ready with Kerala, Tamil Nadu and other states simultaneously,” Dalwai said. The UIDAI has appointed Karnataka government and State Bank of Mysore (SBM) as the registrar for the project in Karnataka. SBM is the 48th registrar for the project.
Talking to reporters after signing the memorandum of understanding with SBM, he said the unique ID number would be given to every resident of India. The authority will collect demographic and biometric data from the residents with the help of registrars. The UIDAI will store the entire data of the residents with CIDR, a database located in Bangalore, he said.
Dilip Mavinkurve, managing director, SBM said the bank tied up with UIDAI as the registrar as it would help the bank to identify its customers as part of the financial inclusion programme. “We are already collecting most of the data from our potential customers as part of our financial inclusion programme. As registrars to UIDAI, we have to collect the additional data like the iris image of the customers and pass it on to the authority. By doing this, we will achieve two purposes. One is to get our own customers and secondly help UIDAI to develop their database,” he said.
He said the bank would get a nominal fee of Rs 50 for collecting the data for each person from UIDAI. Part of this fee will be shared with the service providers like those who set up equipment to capture iris data. The bank has already tied up with Integra Microsystems for collecting data for Chamarajanagar district, he added.
The SBM is launching its financial inclusion programme in 269 villages with a population of over 2,000. The bank board has approved a roadmap to implement financial inclusion Under ICT (information, communication technology) based financial inclusion, the bank is shortly launching the project through business correspondent model on the lines of Reserve Bank of India directions, Mavinkurve added.
