Aadhaar: A Biometric History of India's 12-Digit Revolution

by Shankkar Aiyar

Others came to join this eclectic mix of talent and diversity. Ashok Pal Singh was deputy director general with India Post and dreamt of creating a bank account for every Indian. He met with Nilekani and Sharma to suggest how this could be done. He was invited to join and drive financial inclusion.1 B.B. Nanavati, an Indian Revenue Service officer armed with a huge cache of experience in IT procurement, was the author of many requests for proposals (RFPs). Rajesh Bansal, from the Reserve Bank of India, who was on a sabbatical at Duke University in the US, enabled perspective and understanding of regulatory challenges using his experience in designing digital payment systems. There was no dearth of talent. Sharma says, ‘People from different sectors from within the government and outside wanted to join the UIDAI.’ Raj Mashruwala, a senior of Nilekani’s from his IIT Bombay days and a serial entrepreneur in the US, wrote to congratulate him and came on to assist. Nadhamuni, who was one of the first people Nilekani had met and discussed the idea with, joined in to help. Sanjay Swamy, CEO of mChek, wrote to Nilekani about possibilities and got invited to help with the mobile and micro payments push. Pramod Varma, an ex-Infosysian, one of the key finds of Nilekani and among the first five to jump in, was Chief Technology Architect and VP research at Sterling Commerce (now IBM). Varma brought with him expertise in architecture strategies for systems and joined as Chief Architect ...