J Satyanarayana appointed part-time chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India

NEW DELHI: Former IT secretary to the government of India, J Satyanarayana, was on Thursday appointed as the part-time Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) which runs the ambitious Aadhaar project.

Satyanarayana, who is a retired IAS officer was administered the oath by union minister for electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad. The government also appointed Rajesh Jain of NetCore and Anand Deshpande of Persistant Systems as part-time members of UIDAI. Satyanarayana, takes over from Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of Infosys who was appointed to create a unique identity system for the country in 2008 by the previous government.

"With the appointment of a Chairman and the members, the Aadhaar ecosystem is now complete," said Prasad.

As on Wednesday, UIDAI has generated more than 105 crore Aadhaars which denotes a saturation level of 82.11% in the country with a population of around 125 crore people. Prasad added that the almost 32 crore bank accounts have been linked with Aadhaar and the government has derived saving of around Rs. 25,000 crore from the project, a majority of which have come from the direct benefits transfar in cooking oil scheme.

Satyanarayana served as the Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology from 2012 to 2014 before superannuation. Jain is the founder and managing director of netCORE Solutions while Deshpande is the founder, chairman and managing director of Persistent Systems.