Nilekani ensures prevention of duplication of national ID cards

Bangalore, July 13 (ANI): The newly designated chief of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIAI), Nandan Nilekani, called on Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Monday before leaving for New Delhi.

Speaking about his new task, Nilekani said that his prime issue would be to ensure prevention of any duplication of the national ID cards.

He said that the prime objective of the UIAI would be to find ways and means on creating a centralized and fool-proof national database of all bona-fide Indian citizens.

"I feel the key issue is how we ensure that there are no duplicates. I think the big problem prevails with identity issue. There are many systems and lot of duplicates, which lead to fraud. So we are trying to figure out how we can create a national, centralised database," he said.

"In fact the Finance Minister (Pranab Mukherjee) talked about this in his budget speech also to create a centralised database of Indian residents and then create a national authentication and enrolment capability," said Nilekani, Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIAI).

On his part, Yediyurappa opined that he was very proud of Nilekani, a Bangalorean for taking up such a noteworthy responsibility at the Central level, and also hoped that Karnataka will get the benefit of Nilekani's assignment.

"He is taking very big responsibility in the central government. We are proud of him and we have requested him to cooperate in development of Karnataka also," said B S Yediyurappa, chief of Karnataka.

The UID scheme will be implemented across the country once the fresh National Population Register is completed by 2011.

The Indian federal government has earmarked rupees 1200,000,000 million for the project in the country's 2009-2010 budget.

The UIAI will provide unique identification numbers will be provided to the Indian citizens. (ANI)