Process to create the National Population Register starts

NEW DELHI: The government has kicked off the process of collecting biometric imprints to create the National Population Register. About 44 companies, selected by the Department of Information Technology (DIT), have bid for a pan-India collection of biometric data. The project, if completed, will become the world's largest database of people's biometrics.

"Bids are in the range of 27-55 per biometric enrollment, depending on zones. Most bids range around 34 per enrollment," said a top e-governance official involved in the process. About 11 crore citizens, who have enrolled under the Aadhaar scheme, will have to submit biometric data again as the home ministry has not accepted the biometric data of UIDAI due to security concerns, DIT said.

Some of the firms selected by DIT to bid for the biometric exercise in 17 non-coastal states include small IT startups such as CSS Tech, Karvy Computershare, UTI Infra Tech, TechSmart India, Srei Infra, Calance Software, Vision Comptech and Data Soft.

The mandate for collecting data in the coastal states rests with Central PSUs Bharat Electronics Limited and ECIL. ITI will carry out biometric collection in both non-coastal and coastal states. DIT is mandated to collect biometric data of 56 crore people above five years within 12 months. Demographics of 62.5 crore people will be collected within six months. "Most demographics have been collected as part of the last Census. We are now digitising the demographic data, of which data of 27 crore citizens is already digitised," said a top official of the Registrar General of India.