State-run Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), under which the insurance major would share data with the Nandan Nilekani-led entity.
"UID is a project of national importance, and a great challenge for us to implement due to the tight deadlines," LIC Chairman T S Vijayan told reporters here.
Vijayan said that besides helping LIC cater to customers with multiple policies through the provision of unique numbers, it will give a fillip to its initiatives in social schemes such as micro-insurance.
Nandan Nilekani, ex-CEO of Infosys and Chairman of UIDAI, said his institution will procure information from certain fields of LIC's database of over 21-crore policyholders, such as names, addresses, dates of birth, sex and biometrics.
"The rest of the database remains with them, and whatever we take is also secure as we will not be sharing it with anyone, only using it for authentication," Nilekani said, adding that the Authority will be tying up with more registrars for a quicker roll-out of the numbers.
The authority's plans to provide online authentication, wherein the information of a particular person can be obtained remotely through the Internet, would benefit LIC, Nilekani said.
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He maintained that the UIDAI was moving as per its target of rolling out the first of its numbers between August 2010 and February 2011, as announced in this year's budget.
"Our partnership with LIC is a significant milestone in the mission of UIDAI to give a unique ID to every resident in India. It will enable a large number of residents to enrol and get an Aadhaar number as well as enable LIC to effectively deliver new products and services to enable financial inclusion," Nilkeni said.
The UID, which will play a critical role in enabling financial inclusion, is expected to transform the way benefits under various social welfare programmes are delivered.