Union Budget: UIDAI to get Rs 120 crore

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who presented the Union Budget today for the financial year 2009-1010, said the unique ID project, the unique identification authority of India (UIDAI), will set up an online database of personal information including biometrics.

The Finance Minister said the UIDAI will roll out the first set of the UID in 12 to 18 months and and Rs 120 crore have been earmarked for this project.

Recently former co-chairman of Infosys, Nandan Nilekani, had been appointed the chief of the UIDAI project.

Flexibility for IIFCL

While presenting the Budget the Finance Minister also said that State-owned India Infrastructure Finance Company (IIFCL) will be given more flexibility, and it has been authorized to raise Rs 100,000 crore in for the development of the infrastructure sector including telecom, power etc, in the next 15 to 18 months. He also proposed IIFCL to finance 60 per cent of commercial bank loans for PPP.

"There are signs of revival in domestic industry and foreign investors have also returned to Indian markets in the last couple of months, said Mukherjee. "It is possible that the two worst quarters since the global financial meltdown in September 2008 are behind us."

Said Mukherjee: "While the global financial condition has shown improvement over the recent month, uncertainty relating to the revival of the global economy remains. We cannot, therefore, afford to drop our guard.

He said we have to continue our efforts to provide further stimulus to the economy.

Mukherjee also said the government would give relief to exporters hit by global financial crisis and extend interest subvention to exporters in 7 sectors till March 2010.

The minister said private investment has been the key growth driver and also a significant rise of foreign capital inflows is important for the country.

Pranab Mukherjee said the 15 per cent agency commission waiver for govt advertisements print publication will be extended for another six months. He also said scheduled commercial banks can set up offsite ATM.