Posted: Thu Sep 15 2011, 00:37 hrs New Delhi:
In response to the August 29 report titled “Plan Panel, Parliamentary Committee red flag UID costs”, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)’s Director General and Mission Director has written:
Escalation in the project cost: The UIDAI has been seeking approvals in a phased manner for different project components, keeping in view the project stages and the roll out plan. Enrollment of residents is only one of the activities. Technology back-end for de-duplication of the resident’s data, operation and maintenance of infrastructure, issuance of Aadhaar numbers, contact centre, re-designing of various applications to leverage Aadhaar are some of the other major components.
Iris scan and its contribution to the increased costs: With a population as large as 1.2 billion, establishing uniqueness is a daunting task and iris, in addition to 10 fingerprints, ensures a higher accuracy in de-duplication. The average price of an iris scanner which was of the order of Rs 1 lakh just one year back have come down to as low as Rs 25,000. Even at the original estimates of Rs 4.40, it will cost only Rs 500 crore for the entire population. Important reasons for inclusion of iris in the set of biometrics are: ensuring inclusion of the poor, and children, reduction in the execution and technology risks and future development of authentication systems. Inclusion of iris was deliberated at length among various stakeholders prior to being put up before the Cabinet Committee on UIDAI and the government has accorded approval.
Iris scan and its contribution to the increased costs: With a population as large as 1.2 billion, establishing uniqueness is a daunting task and iris, in addition to 10 fingerprints, ensures a higher accuracy in de-duplication. The average price of an iris scanner which was of the order of Rs 1 lakh just one year back have come down to as low as Rs 25,000. Even at the original estimates of Rs 4.40, it will cost only Rs 500 crore for the entire population. Important reasons for inclusion of iris in the set of biometrics are: ensuring inclusion of the poor, and children, reduction in the execution and technology risks and future development of authentication systems. Inclusion of iris was deliberated at length among various stakeholders prior to being put up before the Cabinet Committee on UIDAI and the government has accorded approval.
Increase in the packet size: The average packet size per resident data today is of the order of about 4 MB and the size of the iris scan is about 700 KB. The cost of storage of iris image of our entire population of Rs 20 crore if we keep two copies much less than Rs 100 crore. These prices are expected to reduce as we go along.
Duplication of work between NPR and UIDAI: The multiple registrar strategy for UID was devised wherein enrollments are done through many registrars, one of which is the Registrar General of India. This not only enables rapid coverage but also empowers the resident for getting enrolled through a registrar of his choice. RGI as a registrar has also commenced biometric enrollments for National Population Register through which UID will be issued. The assistance to registrars from UIDAI is outcome based. While approving the UID project, the government had created an inter-ministerial coordination committee of UIDAI, DIT, NIC and RGI to look into issues relating to convergence and duplication. The committee has been meeting regularly and working out ways to achieve these objectives.
Ambiguity in the reporting structure: UIDAI was notified as an attached office of the Planning Commission and it is functioning as such since its inception. Nandan Nilekani was appointed as its Chairman with the rank of a Cabinet minister and reports to Prime Minister. At the operational level, the UIDAI is headed by DG and Mission Director, an officer of the Additional Secretary rank The DG reports to the Chairman.
Duplication of work between NPR and UIDAI: The multiple registrar strategy for UID was devised wherein enrollments are done through many registrars, one of which is the Registrar General of India. This not only enables rapid coverage but also empowers the resident for getting enrolled through a registrar of his choice. RGI as a registrar has also commenced biometric enrollments for National Population Register through which UID will be issued. The assistance to registrars from UIDAI is outcome based. While approving the UID project, the government had created an inter-ministerial coordination committee of UIDAI, DIT, NIC and RGI to look into issues relating to convergence and duplication. The committee has been meeting regularly and working out ways to achieve these objectives.
Ambiguity in the reporting structure: UIDAI was notified as an attached office of the Planning Commission and it is functioning as such since its inception. Nandan Nilekani was appointed as its Chairman with the rank of a Cabinet minister and reports to Prime Minister. At the operational level, the UIDAI is headed by DG and Mission Director, an officer of the Additional Secretary rank The DG reports to the Chairman.