UID project renamed Aadhaar; Nilekani stresses its importance

Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) Nandan Nilekani today said that lack of identity has denied the poor and the marginalised a chance to effectively participate in economic growth.

Speaking at a press conference in New Delhi nine months after he took charge of the UIDAI, he said the absence of an identity has only widened the divide between the rich and the poor in this country.

Nilekani also announced that the UID project, which aims to give a 16-digit identification number to all citizens of the country, was being renamed as 'Aadhaar'. He also unveiled its new logo.

"UID itself is very confusing. Some call it DUI, some call it IUD, and so forth. Therefore, we wanted a name that could effectively communicate its transformational potential and its promise to residents," Nilekani said while making the announcement.

"This is a landmark event for the UIDAI as well as for our partners. This is the first public event where we bring together all our potential partners and stakeholders in the UIDAI ecosystem as well as all the agencies for whom the UIDAI will ultimately prove useful," the co-founder and former chairman of Infosys Technologies Ltd said.

The absence of an effective identity infrastructure has been sharply felt by both government and service providers. In the last few years we have had significant increase in our social welfare spending, we have a large number of initiatives that go towards giving benefits to the people ... rapid economic growth can only be inclusive if we are able to deliver the benefits to the people who matter and what we find increasingly is that lack of identity is denying the poor and the marginalised chance to effectively participate in the ecosystem, participate in the economic growth," he said.

In a report released on Friday, the UIDAI said the plan to offer UID cards to all citizens will bring a range of banking services within reach of millions of poor who currently cannot even open a bank account. Facilities such as microfinance are beyond the reach of many poor people in both towns and villages who do not have documentary proof of their identity.

"As a result, banks will be able to scale up their branch-less banking deployments and reach out to a wider population at a lower cost," it added. The plan will take a "low-cost, high-volume revenue" approach, with a large number of small transactions from poor clients.