Chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) Nandan Nilekani on Wednesday said the Unique Identification Number, renamed as ‘Aadhaar’, would be issued in a few days. “We will issue the UID numbers in a few days,” Mr Nilekani told reporters on the sidelines of AIMA convention here.
He said in the first four years, 600 million people would be covered and the UID number would be useful for a number of applications like financial inclusion.
The UIDAI has had discussions with the RBI for preparing the roadmap for financial inclusion with the help of micro-ATMs, he said.
A unique eco-system would be created, Mr Nilekani said, where the authority would be surrounded by registrars which would be either banks, oil companies or public sector units.
Mr Nilekani said a big challenge facing the UID was of de-duplication. Giving a UID number was akin to giving mobile identity to a person using biometric technology. He said approaching the authority for a second time would be made a penal offence.
Published - September 22, 2010 05:11 pm IST