Now that the government has decided to assign a unique identity to each citizen in a bid to target social security services as well as assure internal security, the 1.16-billion population is waiting with bated breath. Issuing identities to all of them is a laudable, but a very long-term exercise. The day when the last Indian has been given the record will surely arrive, but we need a more modest goal post to start the project with. So, what is the minimum number of identity records that Nandan Nilekani, as the head of Unique Identity Authority of India, can issue without much sweat using the existing databases?
(This story appears in the 28 August, 2009 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)
Hi Riyas : The de-duplication process will find people who are there on both lists. You cannot therefore assume that all 350 million (now of course higher) mobile subscribers will also be voter card holders.<br /> <br /> @Anand - I agree. Which is why we have discounted 427 million to 350 million in the article. If you're saying even that is too high, we'd love to hear how you calculated that :)
on Oct 29, 2009"Telecon subscriber with 586 million voter list with 350 million people. There will be common entries in these two databases" I do agree about 'common entries' but in this case the smaller being the voter list, whatever be the duplication, you are talking about, the min no. can be the latter one right? So the figure should be 350 mn and not the 1/3rd as brought out here. Pls clarify.
on Oct 29, 2009IMO it would be a blunder to assume that the mobile subscriber data is verified and is fool-proof. It is certainly not as reliable as we would like for the UID project.
on Aug 27, 2009