Making a unique impression
Moumita Bakshi Chatterjee
It's for U and I: Work on India's Unique Identification Project is gaining momentum. Here's a wrap-up of the action..
Overall, the project is expected to give the much-needed fillip to the domestic IT and BPO market.
The UIDAI hopes to give out the first set of numbers by February 2011, and cover 600 million residents in 4.5 years.
The engines of the unique identification project, which have been revving up for the last few months, seem all set to move full throttle ahead.
The UID project has visibly shifted into higher gear in the past few weeks. Not only is it sporting a brand new logo — Aadhaar — but also shaking up the local IT market, thanks to a slew of contracts pertaining to consulting, application development & maintenance, contact centre services, biometric solutions and training services.
Going forward, these contracts will form the core technological backbone of the nation-wide project — it will enable Government to hand out unique identification numbers to 1.2 billion residents in coming years, and also process hundreds of thousands of simultaneous authentication requests each day.
Overall, the project is expected to give the much-needed fillip to the Rs 66,200-crore domestic IT and BPO market, where growth rate is projected to touch 15-17 per cent in FY11.
Speaking at a UID conference last month, Anirudha Dutta, Executive Director – Equity Research, CLSA, had pointed out that the UID opportunity over the next five years aggregate could be a staggering $20 billion.
This would entail pieces such as strategy, IT consulting, hardware, business process re-engineering, analytics, business intelligence, as well as commercial scope for mobile telecom firms, banks and other organisations.
Ambitious scale
For the record, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will provide, to every resident, a unique identification number that will serve as a universal proof of identity, allowing residents to establish their credentials anywhere in India.
This ID will be assigned on the basis of the uniqueness of the resident's biometrics. Accordingly, the project proposes to capture fingerprint and iris-related biometrics of each resident. This will enable the Centre to correctly establish the identity of an individual by linking the UID number to the demographic and biometric information.
“It is a computing-intensive task. And it has never been done before on this scale…The largest database so far has been 120 million, and so in that sense we are going to an uncharted territory. But it is doable,” said the UIDAI Chairman, Nandan Nilekani, at a recent CII event.
Putting tech blocks in place
The UIDAI hopes to give out the first set of numbers by February 2011, and cover 600 million residents in 4.5 years.
So it is on a war-footing that the UIDAI is putting together the technological blocks that will ultimately shape India's grandiose plans. In February, the authority roped in a leading consultant to develop the roadmap for the UID project. Ernst & Young edged out other contenders such as Booz & Allen, PA Consulting and Capgemini to win the mandate.
Around the same time, it also invited bids for the development, support and maintenance of UID application software. Although the contract value was relatively small (it ultimately worked out to Rs 19 crore), the tender created quite a buzz in the market as it was the first IT project from the UID stable.
Nineteen bids for application software development came in, and 10 players were shortlisted.
The top IT vendors such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro, IBM and Accenture slugged it out for the mandate, but it is mid-sized IT firm MindTree that looks set to bag the application development deal.
Another key IT contract is for implementation of biometric solutions. The UIDAI has invited Expressions of Interest for implementation of biometric solutions (functions such as de-duplication and biometric verification) for up to 20 crore records in the very first phase of the UID project.
Close to 14 players, including global giants such as Cogent, L-1 Identity Solutions, NEC, and Sagem as well as Indian IT firms such as TCS, Wipro and Bartronics have evinced interest in the order, whose value is being widely estimated at over Rs 100 crore. The companies have already made a detailed presentation before the UIDAI and a shortlist is expected soon.
“The biometric solution will need to support up to one million de-duplication and verification requests a day.
Given the magnitude involved, all biometric companies are trying to bring UID-specific solutions to meet the local requirements,” says one of the bidders.
Procurement of IT-enabled services
Meanwhile, the authority has set the ball rolling on procurement of IT-enabled services that would support the UID project.
Recently it floated the request for proposal (RFP) for setting up contact centres and spelt out the technical and financial criteria for interested bidders.
The call centres' services would offer the central point of contact for assistance or queries on the UID programme and have already caught the attention of Indian and global BPO companies. Genpact, Wipro BPO, Firstsource, TCS, Spanco BPO and many others are expected to jump into the fray on June 1, the last date for submission of bids.
“There is clearly a lot of excitement around all the UID projects and given that the Budget allocation for the UIDAI for the current fiscal is Rs 1,900 crore, we are likely to see quite a bit of movement on the various IT orders this year,” says Rajiv Agarwal, CEO (e-governance), of Spanco.
Training of enrolling agents
Besides this, work has also started for empanelment of training institutes with a view to create trained workforce for UID enrolments.
The empanelled institutes will train the enrolling agency's staff to ensure a standardised enrolling process.
As per initial estimates, this would involve training of over one lakh enrolling agents in four years' time.
Players such as NIIT Ltd, Aptech and HCL Infosystems are eyeing the project, for which the last date of submission of bids is May 17.
“Generally, training contracts tend to be more regional, but this is a tender that has a country-wide repercussion. We will definitely bid,” says the Aptech CEO and MD, Ninad Karpe.
Stiff criteria ring
While the overall UID opportunity promises to be huge, the going would certainly not be a cakewalk for potential bidders. Despite the wide interest to participate in the UID project, only a handful will make it to the final cut.
Already, players are talking about the stiff criteria ring fencing some of the contracts. Another issue being flagged by the industry pertains to the frequent modifications in EoIs and RFPs that are being invited.
“Typically in contracts, partners first get into discussion with players and take their inputs before inviting EoI or RFP. But here, the discussions are taking place after the RFP is floated.
As a result we are seeing frequent revisions and modifications in various documents. This is a little discomforting,” says an industry observer.
moumita@thehindu.co.in