Govt may roll out unique ID call centre on July 12

NEW DELHI: Very soon, a voice in local language could be advising you on the benefits of how to get an Aadhar ID. The Unique ID Authority of India’s (UIDAI) call centre services may start from July 12 and will act as a front-end for assigning of the unique identity number.

This prestigious project is likely to invite bids from top IT services firms, such as Wipro and TCS, apart from BPO vendors FirstSource, IBM, Aegis, Intelenet and Spanco.

The government has invited tenders from large domestic BPOs with a minimum turnover of Rs 250 crore for the past three years and a minimum capacity of 2,500 seats. Aegis, FirstSource and IBM already handle the back-office operations of HDFC, ICICI and telcos such as Idea Cellular, Airtel and Vodafone.

Clearly, the success of the UIDAI will be critically-linked to its back-end services, which may become even bigger than the 139 service of the Indian Railways.

The BPO will handle all queries from change of name and address to loss of the Aadhaar number, and even look at grievances like no separate enclosures for burqa or purdah-clad women.

It is also expected to act as an interface between citizens, registrars, enrolling agencies and those needing to authenticate one’s ID when one applies for a loan or a credit card.

Operating eight-to-eight, six days a week — even on all festivals — customer care will be delivered through calls, e-mails, pull-and-push SMS, fax as well as through traditional means like written letters and postcards.

The BPO is expected to handle at least six lakh call minutes in the first three months and so the government may have to add another BPO, as soon as enrolments cross 10 crore citizens.

The government plans to pay the BPO for calls per minute. For each minute of inbound call, the government will give a specific amount (say Rs 2-3/minute). For an SMS push, the government will pay the BPO 3% of the per-minute call rate.

For a successful grievance solved through email, the per minute rate will be paid. For handling a grievance through letter or fax, the government will pay the BPO thrice the per minute call rate.