Calcutta, Dec. 7: Nandan Nilekani, chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, today said the scope of application of the biometric database of unique identification number (UID) can be expanded beyond the proposed cash transfer scheme of the central government.
"We have built the world's largest database where 270 million people are enrolled and 220 million have been issued numbers. We are planning to build a database of 1.2 billion people," Nilekani said at the future leadership awards today at Infocom 2012, organised by Businessworld, an ABP group publication.
"The first application that we are launching with the ID system is electronic cash transfer to people's bank accounts. But it can also be used for electronic crediting of rice and wheat in the public distribution system," he said.
Andhra Pradesh is already using such a system and Nilekani hinted that it could be expanded for implementation in other states as well.
"An electronic verification system (based on the database) can also be used to buy a SIM card across the table with no paperwork. In future, people can also build health, credit and skill records on it. So basically, we are creating an application infrastructure that allows people to build newer applications around the database," Nilekani said.
Leadership award
Infocom future leadership awards 2012 announced its six winners today. The award is based on an open paper writing competition. The theme this time is mobility.
The six winners in alphabatical order are Anirban Acharya (Narsee Monjee Institute of Management, Mumbai), Evgeniya Kalenykh (University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business), Ganesh Tamboli (Sailesh J Mehta School of Management, IIT Mumbai), Harini Palaniswamy (Indian School of Business, Hyderabad), Ramakanta Sahu (Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore) and Vikramadith Raman (Indian School of Business, Hyderabad).