UIDAI signs MoU with Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas

The Union Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) here today to facilitate the close cooperation and working of the UIDAI with the Ministry and the oil marketing companies (OMCs) for the implementation of the UID project.

The Ministry signed the MoU as the administrative ministry for the public sector oil companies - Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL).

Mr Apurva Chandra, Joint Secretary, signed the MoU on behalf of the Ministry and Ms K Ganga, Deputy Director General, signed it on behalf of UIDAI.

Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Murli Deora, UIDAI Chairman Nandan Nilekani and Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Jitin Prasada were amongst those present on the ocasion.

The Ministry will authorise the OMCs to be registrars for the implementation of the Aadhar project of the UIDAI, meant for issuing UID numbers (Aadhar numbers) to all residents in India, while implementing the smart card project related to distribution of PDS kerosene and domestic LPG through biometric identification of beneficiaries.

An official press release said this would help in accurately identifying users and beneficiaries of the services rendered by the OMCs and have uniform standards and processes for their verification and identification.

The Ministry, with the OMCs and the UIDAI, will chart out a joint roadmap for the implementation of Aadhar numbers in the OMCs' database.

According to the release, there are more than 11.5 crore LPG customers in the country today and it is envisioned that, by the year 2015, this number would grow to 16 crore.

The population coverage is expected to increase from 55% today to 75% by 2015 with greater penetration in rural and underserved areas.

The Ministry has launched the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen LPG Vitaran Yojana (RGGLVY) to increase the rural coverage and proposes to encourage enrolment of BPL families as LPG customers by providing one-time financial assistance for enrolment.

The de-duplication process and the online authentication that the UIDAI offers will enhance the efficiency of OMCs in their delivery of services for the increasing customer base. The bio-metric Smart Card-based distribution of PDS SKO and domestic LPG Pilot Project will be executed along with the State Governments of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, who have already entered into an MOU with the UIDAI.

The initial pilots would be held in the city of Hyderabad, Mysore and Tumkur. Selected blocks in the city of Pune (Maharashtra) are also proposed to be covered under the pilot. Based on the outcome of the pilot studies, a nationwide rollout would be taken up in a phased manner. Further, as the OMCs already have a ready database of LPG customers, they are prepared to undertake the independent projects for domestic LPG anywhere in the country as per the scheduling of UIDAI, the release added.

NNN