India to implement UIC for its citizen

The Government of India plans for implementing and allocating Unique Identification Cards for its citizens. This is one of the most ambitious step taken by the GOI for the people of India. It is expected that this huge and cumbersome plan will cost around INR 1.5 lakh crore to the government but at the same time this project will put in India in line with approximately 56 other countries which all ready have some form of national identity cards for its citizens like China, Brazil, Japan and Europe (excluding U.K)

The main purpose of this project is to speed up the languishing programmes especially for the citizens also to keep records of tax, address proof, driving license number and other data of the citizens.

The project will be carried out in several phases or steps , first step in issuing ID cards is building a complete computerized record of all citizens above the age of 18.It needs to be computerized so that it is accessible and it can be updated constantly. This task is being done by the Registrar General of India (RGI) under the home ministry, since the RGI carries out the census every decade. In fact, this database is going to be generated along with the next Census, slated for 2011. It will be called the National Population Register.

However, the technical and main challenge is to create a tamper-proof smart card, which can function in Indian conditions and sophisticated software called SCOSTA will reportedly be used for creating the cards. The cards would contain as many as 16 pieces of personal information. The information will be stored in micro-chips embedded in the card and it will be accessible only to authorized users, like police officials. Apart from carrying personal details like photo, age, address and fingerprints, the MNIC will contain a National Identity Number, which will be unique to the individual.