Data pertaining to Aadhaar enrolment was secure and designed to ensure complete privacy, former chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), Nandan Nilekani said here on Friday.
Speaking on Transforming Governance Through Technology before receiving the ‘V. Krishnamurthy Award for Excellence’ at the Centre for Organisation Development (COD), Mr. Nilekani said that when he had stepped down as chairman 60 crore enrolme-nts had been completed. The figure now stood at 67 crore, he said, adding that a few errors could have crept up while compiling such huge data.
“With the recent Union Cabinet approval on Aadhaar enrolment for the four States of UP, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand, the 100-crore mark will be crossed in a couple of years,” he said.
A unique identity was a prerequisite for a host of services in contemporary times and the Aadhaar sought to address this factor.
“The GPS has become a platform to find an answer to the question to where am I,” Mr. Nilekani said adding that Aadhaar could provide the answer to “who am I?”.
The intention behind the unique ID concept was to make it a multi-use platform and in the coming years, this would bring about a paradigm shift, he said.
Technology as such does not solve all problems of governance, but it does allow one to ponder upon finding solutions. Many governance issues could be addressed using technology and areas that would be covered in coming years include healthcare, taxation, education and so on.
Later in the evening, Tamil Nadu Governor K. Rosaiah presented the award to Mr. Nilekani at a function attended by Wockhardt Group founder-chairman Habil F. Khorakiwala, and COD director U. Pandey.
