India | Updated Jan 02, 2012 at 08:44am IST
Srinagar: The Unique Identification (UID) project in Jammu and Kashmir has entered a limbo after one of the vendors, Wipro, refused to carry out the project. CM Omar Abdullah meanwhile has pleaded ignorance of the issue.
Wipro Technologies, apparently in a letter to the Omar Abdullah government, said that it had had enough of its flip flops. It clearly stated in the letter that it would not be able to execute the UID project in the state.
The Omar Abdullah government had unilaterally scrapped a deal it had entered into with Wipro and another local vendor, Compech Technologies.
Abdullah has, however, pleaded ignorance on the status of the project.
He said, “I will have to check this.”
The two companies had won the bid to carry out enrollment of 27 lakh and 45 lakh people respectively. The Jammu and Kashmir Bank - a registrar for the UID project - later invited fresh tenders twice but failed to get the drive started.
The high-profile project will continue to remain in limbo for some more time as another techno group called Eco Bay has now moved the Jammu and Kashmir High Court seeking more transparency in the tendering processes.
The HC has stepped in and asked the bank to explain its position.
The idea behind the entire project was to prepare over 1.1 crore UID cards with biometric details of every person in the state above the age of five in three years.
CM Abdullah was the first to give his fingerprints for the project in August, but the project is yet to take off.