Consortium led by Mahindra-Satyam bag UIDAI contract

The initial phase of the contract will run up to two years and a total of 200 million residents are expected to be de-duplicated by a combination of the three Biometric Solution Agencies in the first stage of the program. "The entire selection process was completed in record time of three months and many new international benchmarks, including one of the lowest prices for de-duplication have been achieved," Unique Identification Authority of India spokesperson Awadhesh Kumar Pandey said.

He said the multi-modal system and allocation of de-duplication transactions among the three agencies based on the performance of each system is being attempted for the first time in identity resolution systems anywhere. The scope of work for the Biometrics Solution Providers will include the design, supply, installation, commissioning,
maintenance and support of multi-modal Automatic Biometric Identification Subsystem (ABIS) and multi-modal Software Development Kit (SDK) for client enrolment station, verification server, manual adjudication and monitoring function of the UID application.

These functions would go into creating the ability of UIDAI to ensure de-duplication during the allotment of UID numbers based on the biometric information collected from the residents.