Unique ID or UID is a very ambitious project to provide a unique ID to each individual person in India. The project has been considered by the Indian Government to bring better governance in India. This also will be playing a very big role in the development of India. India with its booming population and economy does require a better tracking of the people and this might be the answer.

“There has been a long-felt need in the country for a system of unique identification of every individual for a variety of purposes such as better targeting of government’s development schemes, regulatory purposes (including taxation and licensing), security purposes, banking and financial sector activities, etc. In the absence of such a nationwide system, each sector of the economy or department/ agency of the government adopts its own system of identification such as PAN card, ration card, Electoral Photo Identity Card, credit cards, etc,” the government had said in a press note while announcing the project in November.

Source : ciol

Though the involvement of Microsoft and Yahoo will not be of business nature, it is a huge opportunity for both the parties to be involved in a such an important project. Report says that Yahoo’s CEO had recommended India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to use Yahoo for the project. Yahoo also have claimed that Yahoo has a better presence in India and that 3/4 Indians access Internet through Yahoo.

We must not forget the influence of Google in India. Google’s  social networking site Orkut is the most popular platform in Indians. This might may indicate Google as a very good partner to execute the project. Even chairman of Microsoft, Bill Gate seems to have expressed his interest in the project who have had meeting with Nilekani, the co-chariman of Infosys earlier this year. Microsoft have claimed that it would be able to assign the IDs swiftly.

We all know that recently, Microsoft lost a huge project on cloud computing against Google for providing services to LA Calif Government. Though I didn’t find any indication of involvement of Google in UID project. Its a subject of interest to Google if Microsoft and Yahoo are into it. May be this is time when India can actually outsource its project to Western Hub.

News Source : TechCrunch