Unique Identification Authority of India

The Big Four – KPMG, Deloitte, Ernst and Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers – are in a fray for snapping up the consultant’s job for the Unique Identification Authority of India’s UID project. These four have cleared the first two rounds of evaluation to reach the technical evaluation stage along with three other companies which include Booz & Allen, PA Consulting and Capgemini.

The authority is set to finalise the consultant for the project by the end of next month. The consultant’s mandate will be to develop the technological roadmap for the project along with selecting an IT service provider, which will carry out the entire project. The authority, which is being spearheaded by Infosys Technologies co-founder and former chairman Nandan Nilekani aims to give out the first set of numbers by February 2011.

Sources said around 10 consultants had bid for the project in the first phase of which seven have been short-listed. American technology and consulting giant Accenture is said to have bid initially but was disqualified on certain criteria. The seven companies will be required to give presentations tothe authority, slated between February 5 and 10. The ones shortlisted would be invited for the commercial bidding of the project. “The authority has promised to give the contract within two weeks of the presentations,” said the source.

According to the tender document, the scope of the works includes, “Designing a programme management strategy and implementation roadmap for the UID project, formulating the strategy, business models, and implementation roadmap for the Central ID Data Repository (CIDR), formulating the requirements and specifications for the CIDR, preparing the required RFPs, managing the bid processes, selecting a managed service provider and providing project management services for the implementation of the CIDR.”

Meanwhile, as reported earlier, the technological hub for the project will be based in Bangalore and the authority will also open regional centres to cater to several states each. While the authority had earlier invited bids for Biometric and Fingerprinting devices, it has also recently called for application software development companies to provide application software development, maintenance and support services (ASDMS) for: designing, developing, testing, integrating, supporting and maintaining UID application (UID-APP) software.

Read more: http://www.taxguru.in/chartered-accountant/big-four-in-race-to-grab-the-consultant%e2%80%99s-job-for-the-unique-identification-authority-of-india%e2%80%99s-uid-project.html#ixzz0eO3Gnfpy