UIDAI enlists over 200 enrollment agencies

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), recently announced that it has finalized the list of 15 training agencies empaneled with it for providing training to various personnel working for the enrollment agencies.

It has also enlisted 220 agencies who are qualified for the enrollment process, said a press release.

The training agencies empaneled include Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) subsidiary CMC, Chennai-based Everonn Education, Aptech, NIIT, CDAC, the All India Punjab Technical University Department Association, Cavalier India, Ecit, Hero Mindmine Institute, IndiaCan Education, Manipal K12 Education, Manipal Education, Tata Interactive Systems, DOEACC Society and Crux Management.

The empaneled agencies would provide services to registrars and enrollment agencies to develop the skills of their personnel.

UIDAI has appointed a testing and certification agency to conduct online tests to assess the individual’s ability to carry out enrollments according to its prescribed standards.

“Since the enrollment process requires a certain amount of technical as well as soft skill to ensure quality and accuracy of the data, the UIDAI has stipulated mandatory certification for all the personnel involved in the enrollment process,” said R S Sharma, director general UIDAI.

UIDAI has empaneled 220 agencies that include small and medium IT firms, advertising and financial trading firms. Some of the names include 4GID Solutions, Comat Technologies, Datasoft, CSS, Glodyne Technoserve, Deep Advertising, Spanco, UTI Technology among others.

“These firms have been empaneled based on their technical qualification. This also means that states can either work with these firms directly for the enrollment process or they can come out with a request for proposal (RFP) for firms who would then have to be shortlisted according to the UIDAI format,” said Sharma.

He added that if state governments choose from the list of the empaneled firms then the time to get the systems up and running would be much shorter.

Training will allow the enrollment agencies to capture the demographic and biometric information of the residents accurately.

The data will then be sent to UIDAI’s central database to enroll residents for Aadhaar, the UIDAI’s unique 12 digit identification number for Indian citizens.

According to the tender issued by UIDAI, to cover 40 per cent of the country’s population in two years, it would require 155 training centers that would train 31,019 staff. UIDAI will need 4,431 enrollment centers and 22,157 enrollment stations.

Each training center should be equipped with at least 20 computers (PCs) on LAN with the central server, centralized laser printer, audio/video equipment, UPS, Internet connectivity and UIDAI approved bio-metric devices.