29.07.2010 (UNI) The Government said the process of enrolment leading to the issue of Unique Identification number (AADHAAR) is expected to commence from August.

The first set of Unique Identification numbers will be issued between August and February, 2011, it said.

The estimated cost of Phase I and II of the UID project is Rs 3170 crore spread over five years, Minister of State for Planning and Parliamentary Affairs V Narayanswamy said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.

He said that the mandate of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is to issue unique Identification numbers to all the residents.

The UIDAI proposes to collect the demographic and biometric attributes of residents through various agencies of the Central and the State Governments and others who, is normal course of their activities, interact with the residents. These entities are described as ‘Registrars’ of the UIDAI. As the exercise for creating the National Population Register (NPR) under the Citizenship Act, 1955, by the Registrar General of India (RGI) is going on, the RGI will be an important Registrar for the purpose of collection of demographic and biometric data for the project. An Inter-Ministerial Group has been set up to integrate the processes of the NPR with the UID system.

Mr Narayanswamy said the UIDAI set up two committees, namely, the Demographic Data Standards and Verification Procedure Committee (DDSVPC) to recommend the demographic data standards and the biometric standards for collection and verification of demographic and biometric data of residents during enrolment into the UID database and authentication. The DDSVPC was set up on October 9, 2009 with N Vittal as its Chairman and submitted its report on December 9, 2009. The Biometric Committee was constituted under the Chairmanship of Director General, National Informatics Centre in September, 2009 and it submitted its report on December 30, 2009.

The recommendations of both the committees have been accepted by the UIDAI. ‘AADHAAR’ number will be a 12 digit random number. The number will not contain any intelligence. A set of mandatory, conditional and optional demographic data such as name, date of birth, gender, name of parents, residential address and biometric features such as photograph, all ten finger prints and iris images are together expected to establish and verify the identity of a resident. A number of documents have been prescribed by the Demographic Committee to prove identity and address.

The number will be assigned only after biometric de-duplication process of the data supplied by the registrars. The UIDAI’s response to requests to authenticate identity will be positive, negative or any other appropriate response which will not include demographic and biometric information of the resident, the Minister added.UNI