Interview with Shivaram Prasad, Smart Chips (Aadhar Enroller, Hyderabad)
Duration: 00:43:55; Aspect Ratio: 1.778:1; Hue: 38.630; Saturation: 0.150; Lightness: 0.504; Volume: 0.215; Cuts per Minute: 0.023; Words per Minute: 135.973
Summary: The Identity project emerged as a result of our dissatisfaction at the nature of the debate that was emerging on the area of digital governance in India.
Over the past three years we have conducted numerous field visits in seven Indian states.These visits include numerous video-conversations, some short and others very long, with a diverse number of those who were involved with this entire process of participating in the emergence of a digital ecosystem of governance. These are interviews with people being enrolled into the Aadhaar programme, with district-level Panchayat and other officials, with numerous State government bureaucrats, with private enrollment representatives, representatives of various governmental services, with operators and other members of this digital workforce. Conversations are often long, spontaneous and deliberately unstructured: and the focus is mainly on a vérité style using amateur video.
Some key issues that we shortlisted for detailed inquiry were issues of migrants, both domestic and across international borders, homelessness in cities, and the financially excluded. Each of these areas was discussed in considerable detail at major public consultations held in Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Bangalore, in partnership with the CSDS, the Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, and the Urban Research and Policy Programme Initiative of the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. All videos of all presentations made at these events are also available here.
CSCS also has an extensive text archives of material on the field as a whole, available on
http://eprints.cscsarchives.org.
Clip Summary: Shivaram Prasad is with Smart Chips, a subsidiary of global Security grant Morpho, and a key player in the enrolment market for Aadhaar in the state of Andhra Pradesh. In this interview he explains the company's rationale for entering this space, their ambitions, and how these will merge with the policy ambitions of the state of AP.
Q Tell us something about Morpho's operations across the country, in the UID project, and how it came to be that Smartchips got into this particular area. What is the short history?
A: Smartchips has been a pioneer in the smartcard industry and also a pioneer in e-governance operations, and we have over the years been doing RSBY, we have also been doing the Canteen Stores Department, and we have done lot of smartcard operations transports of Orrisa and Madhya Pradesh. So we are not new to this business. When the UID came up with the Aadhaar projec, we saw that as a percursor to a huge smartcard industry initiative, which will come in the next phase when the applications of the UID become apparent.
Anticipating this, and seeing the huge opportunity that is coming up, Smartchips has entered the UID project in different roles. What i am executing here in Hyderabad is the enrollment portion, where we are actually collecting biometrics from different individuals and getting UIDs issued. Morpho is also involved in the UID project in the de-duplication aspect, where Morpho technology is used to issue Aadhaar numbers. Morpho is also involved as a manufacturer of certified fingerprint devices... through sagen. Now that is another way: as a hardware vendor we are involved, as an enroller we are involved, as a technology provider we are also involved and subsequently we will also be involved as a smartcard provider.
0:02: .000
Q: ... and across how many states in the country is Morpho collaborating?
A: Basically Morpho as a technology provider will be operating out of Bangalore, where the CIDR is, but as Smartchips, as an enroller, we are involved right across the country. Currently we are doing three basic registrar projects. One as the AP government, which has been actually the first off the ground, as you have seen. Then we are also working with the government of Maharashtra in a small way, we also also with the State Bank of India, and quite recently with Canara Bank... The Canara Bank project has just been launched. The State Bank projects operate across states, they are not restricted to any particular state. So we are operating in Uttarakand, Uttar Pradesh, we are operating in MP.
Q: And in AP you are doing 7 districts...
A: No, actually we quoted and we were L1 in 3 districts, but we opted to take only 200 stations and we chose it in Hyderabad, essentially because the AP project is the first off the ground. In fact, it is the first off the ground and the first operational project other than a pilot phase in the whole of India. So, because we have been involved in the smart card project as a pioneer, we realised that any any project which is first off, especially something which is highly dependent on technology, very very operation centric, and people centric, would have a lot of teething problems.
So, we thought that we would take this particular towards its [stations] as a pilot for us, not a pilot as far as the government goes, but pilot for the company, where we would actually be testing out the different processes and different models and evolving something which can be replicated on an all-India basis. So that's why I have been working on this, and you have seen in our centers, that we have done a lot of research on the type of equipment we put, the furniture, layout, the processes that we use and the way we collect the data, the way we transport the data, the way we control operations across. Because this project is very, very complex, more because of the logistics involved. In Hyderabad itself, we have 200 stations spread over 42 centers, dispersed all over the district, and maybe over 40-50 Kilometers. Most of these centers have maybe 5-10 people at each center, and with very poor internet connectivity. We do have wireless broadband connections with Photon and all that but these are not an always a situation, it's not like having 300-400 people in one building, its so much easier to manage. Here, when you have a dispersed nature it's very difficult to know what's going on, its very difficult to have any control over who has come, what time they came, attendance, what they are saying to people. Even if I want to train people, bringing people to a central location is itself a gargantuan task, more so because you have people willing-waiting to get enrolled... and I can't keep residents waiting, so designing technology solutions is the only alternative - which is what we are trying to do and using the manifest files, we can actually track what time.. I showed you the manifest file.. how many, what time, the time between two enrollments.. first enrollment in the day, last enrollment in the day and all that.
So, this only part of a solution, we need to have a fully integrated solution but that takes time to develop, and that is what we have been trying to do, and hopefully in the next few months we will be able to do that.
Q: Can you walk us through the entire process? From what I understood, the first step in the process is that you recieve the data of the ration card which is in your hard disk, then you enter the record and you correlate it with the ration card data which you can actually pull out, and then you modify it. And then it is in your hard disk in a zipped file. and then what happens? it goes to the UIDAI? Walk us through the process, step by step.
A:initially, what happens is we identify a location.This location is based on the population of that particular area. Now, we use pseudo-measures, you know, to give you an idea of which location would be more useful for this purpose. The fairprice shops have an idea as to how much is the population of a particular area. So adjacent to the shops somewhere in that vicinity we choose a location, usually a community center. Or, some public location, and see if its got all the facilities like EV access, safety, electricity and things like that. So that is the first step. Location.
On one side we get the location up in the sense, electrical work, earthing, and all that because this is all very sensitive electrical equipment. In safety, for safety we may have to put a door or two, repair the windows and things like that - basic. Then certain amenities we need to provide for our employes, all that we take care of. That's one side of the whole thing.
0:08:45 601
Now the other side is, which is the one time exercise, where we collect the ration card data for Hyderabad. The Commissioner has been very clear: he had a vision that anybody can walk to any center in Hyderbabad and get enrolled. Traditionally it has been that you are linked to a particular fair price shop or linked to a Centre. In Hyderabad, the situation is a bit different. Wherever you are, you could walk to any Centre, because the entire Hyderabad database has been installed in each and every laptop in each of our Centers.
So, getting this data from the ration card department is one aspect of it. We convert it into a CSV format.
Q: How much is this size of the data in numbers?
A: From a size perspective its around 1.2GB.
Q: And numbers?
A: And numbers.. it would vary from district to district and Center to Center, so it goes more by families, each card links to one family.
So, in let's say the Banjara Hills area its around 10 lakh, the population based on the number of ration cards. So the size - we don't take the old IRIS data, we don't take the photograph data, we only take the demographic data - so the size is not all that big.
Once we collect this data, we load it onto our workstations...
So, this is stored in their Pracle databases. All this data has to be in a form where it is readable by these workstations and Aadhaar reads CSV files. CSV is nothing but comma separated values which is a standard import format. So. So we convert all this data, the advantage of converting into CSV is it takes very little space and it is readable by any software. So, I dont need Oracle on any machine or anything like that.
So once this data is there with us and on every notebook, obviously it is a dated data, it is as on a particular day.
Now, what the Civil Supplies has also done in Hyderabad is they are giving an online version where you can go online and update your data. You can bring in a CSV file from the generated file, come in and bring it to our Center and we will upload that data, that becomes an updated data.
But, actually speaking you don't need to do it because the updation that you can do at home we can actually also do at the Center itself, only if you want to save time you can bring in a direct CSV file, and we can import it.
So eventually this data of the civil supplies is of a particular vintage, now once the person comes to get enrolled this data gets updated. the updated data is again given back to the Civil Supplies and along with that data you are also given the Aadhaar data. So, there is a linkage between both.
And eventually the Civil Supplies when they decrypt the Aadhaar data and make the linkage with their existing database, you'll get it perfectly
.
So, three categories of data effectively, one is the Food and Civil Supplies ration data that was there which is updated, second is the Aadhaar data, and the third is the Biometrics?
I put it this way. two categories of data. One is the Civil Supplies data and then the Aadhaar data. The Civil Supplies data is the old demographic which has been updated. The Aadhaar data is only one, but it comes in two versions, one is the packet which is sent to the CIDR which is basically the UID, and another packet which is sent to the Civil Supplies Department, but its actually one. Now this, the second portion which I was referring to has everything, it has got demographics, it has got a photograph, it has got IRIS and it has got fingerprint. It's got everything in one encrypted packet in two versions
So eventually what will happen is based on this Aadhaar data we will give to the Civil Supplies, they will clean up their own database and you will have one great database which is actually verified and de-duplicated...
...which can be used to issue ration cards, eliminate duplicate cards and things like that.
0:14: .720
Q: The time at which you generate the package, you recently have a pre-enrollment id number right?
Q: So what you are actually sending to Food and Civil Supplies are the pre-enrollment ids, so how does the Aadhaar number eventually get tagged in the database.
A: Instead of saying pre-enrollment, I'll put it this way - the ration card data has a ration card number, now when we update it, it generates a pre-enrollment number, now that is a temporary number which we use to import into Aadhaar.
And once we import into aadhaar we finish the biometrics and all the demographics and then generate one enrollment id, now that is the link actually. Now this enrollment id which is given, a copy of which is given to the resident, is again tagged to the Civil Supplies old data.
And the reason why this is necessary is because, Aadhaar asked for some x number of fields. KYR+, because of the requirements of each of the state governments and registrars: they ask for a lot more information, like for example they ask for gas connection details, do you have an LPG connection, things like that. Aadhaar doesn't look at that data. So that's why we have to update a separate set of data.
A: Now the problem is how to ensure that both are connected to each other. That becomes a problem, so what we do - as you have seen (at the Aadhaar entolment Centre) is, while we are importing that pre-enrollment Id into Aadhaar, after we finish an Aadhaar enrollment there is a button which, when you press, it saves this enrollment id into the existing database of the Civil Supplies. That has been one option.
But we found that to be time consuming and creating lot of problems for us in the field, so we have worked out a better, a simpler version where we use barcodes and after the enrollment is done. Now what we are trying to do is this: since each ration card which is there comprises of a family of 4 or 5 people, for these 4 or 5 people that you've seen in the form it gets clubbed together and then we just use a barcode reader and just read all the five Aadhaar barcodes, and automatically it gets linked.
Q: But the Aadhaar number itself will not be linked to the Food and Civil Supplies department.
No, this is at our level, now once this whole process is done and the packets, I mean the enrollments, have been done, then the next step is to take these packets from the station at remote locations to the Central database.
That is done through two steps. One is the export process where whatever data is there in that station gets exported in an encrypted manner, as you have seen, nobody can open it, even if I open it I won't know anything. Then these packets are all collected and sent to the CIDR which is the central ID repository.
Now there the Aadhaar number is generated it may take a process time of 15-20 days or one month or so because of the sudden increase in the volume.
So once the Aadhaar number is generated, when they generate it, it is based on the EID that's an enrollment ID. This enrollment id has been linked to the civil supplies database already. So once the Aadhaar number is generated you have a linkage, a direct linkage between an EID and the UID. So once that is there and that data is again sent to the civil supplies through their portal, for every eid generated by the civil supplies department there is a corresponding Aadhaar number in their portal.
Which they can import it to the software and direct linkage with it.
Q: And by 'their' portal we mean the UID's portal?
A: No, the civil supplies has a separate login. The portal is the same but you have a different login access to different features. So the registrar is logged in, and it will enable him to access that feature, whereby the EID and UID is matched for all EIDs generated under this registrar.
Q: You said that Smartchips also does chips and you also do Smartcards. I dont know who does the smartcard facility for NREGS programme here in AP.
A: No we don't.
Q: You don't. But if you did get into that component as well, you will be technically, you will have the capacity to include this data in those Smartcards theoretically.
A: See basically, many people get sidetracked so to say by this UID: UID is nothing, UID is just a 12 digit number, which is a physical representation of a set, an algorithm, which creates a picture of you as your biopicture, or whatever you call it, right?
Like you have a website, you can't recognize the website so, like a Smartchip
online.com there is an IP address behind it actually: the ip address that nobody remembers but you will remember Smartchips It's like that: you remember your 12 digit number which actually is nothing, its just an indication of what the link to a biometric image which is there, based on whatever algorithm is handled at the backend. Once this database is there, then the applications start.
A: Now each company or each government would have their own applications. The income tax requires this for their own reasons, or the state government will need it for all the benefits they are giving out to people. so that depends on whoever is using it: each will have their own way of using it.
So what they have done is, if you take a smart card for NREGA or ration card or whatever, you will need some of this information, now that information is there in your packet with you. Your registrar packet has that information as part of the KYR+ or as part of KYR whichever way.
Now that information - you have the choice to put it onto a chip and use it as a Smartcard. That is registrar-dependent: it has nothing to do with UID.
Q: In Andhra Pradesh the Food and Civil Supplies department which is actually now just a registar, is evetually going to issue a multipurpose smartcard.
A: Yes
Q: So is that project underway, has that taken off the ground?
A: The pilot is underway, but the full fledged rollout of that would take maybe a few more months.
Q: So that smartcard will basically hold this KYR+ data plus the demographics and the biometrics.
A: Yes
Q: And the Aadhaar number?
A: it depends on what they want on the smartcard. The smartcard technically can hold anything you want. but the more data you put on it the memory limitations are there. I can put 10 fingerprints and 2 iris and my photo and ABCD. but encrypted packet is varying between 5-6 MB, no smartcard can support that much of data. So you will do this on a need based approach, how much is what I need, what do I need to know if I want to issue a ration card. I need to know whether he is who he claims to be, how many people are there in that family and what they are entitled to and that is based on a software.
A: I need some basic data, and that basic data can be put in. Now, how do I validate this at a Point-of-Sale terminal? Lets say I am using fingerprints, so i need his fingerprints in there. I don't want one thumb, I want two thumbs and ten fingers - that's your choice - and so whatever I want, once I put that, the smartness of that chip would be to validate based on whatever is written on that.
Q: At the moment, the Smartcard project is based only on PDS?
A: No, in AP not really, actually the Civil Supplies department is only an implementing agency. They are collecting data: this will be used by most of the other government departments as part of their benefits.
There is, I think, a high possibility that scholarships will be issued based on this.
Q: The further link in most states is with bank accounts: is that going to happen here?
A: Basically bank accounts the bank has to issue, even a bank is a registrar, and it will focus on that aspect of the KYR or KYR+. Now state Civil Supplies is not so much concerned with bank account, unless there is a benefit which transfers some money directly into the bank accounts then you will be very much interested, for example scholarships. It would be a great thing if the student directly gets the scholarship into his bank account then that issue (of bank accounts) becomes valid over there.
Q: But in many places, one of the claims of the UID is that when you get a UID number a bank account comes with it, or a bank account is enabled.
A: Yes, it is enabled here also.
A: What I am trying to say here is that, that is only one of the aspects of the whole. We ask, do you want to open a bank account? UID enabled bank account if the resident says yes then it is automatically opened.
Q: How is it automatically opened?
A: This data will again be going to a bank, then the bank will open it.
Q: In any of your centers do you have banks also, like, setting up a counter and issuing accounts alongwith a UID number?
A: No we don't have that.
Q: That's what we saw in Jharkand they were actually...
A: Yeah there is another part of selling no? I mean you could probably have the bank there once to open accounts. It can be there. But eventiually what will happen is, the moment Aadhaar is generated the bank is also the registrar whoever the bank is: he will have all this information, he has the bank information, he has Aadhaar, he can open it (his bank account).
Q: Yes, it's just rthat it is a little away so along with the enrolment you can finish it.
Q: One specific question: aalready we have encountered situations where the NREGS has its own database, then there ae the Pensions where the governemnt has its own database, and then you will have the ration cards databases and then, if the banks have their own, what do you anticipate to be the technological challenges in terms of reconciling databases and de-duplicating them? Would it actually become a major problem in the future?
A: I'll put it this way: that's where this whole UID concept is very very good. See, the UID is only an agency which will certify - that this person is who he claims to be, period. Then, if you have some application, you have applied for, let's say, a bank account, or a mobile phone or whatever. Now the vendor has to know whether I am Shivaram. I may say I have a 12 digit number, I have a passport, I have this, I have that, now you give multiple documents to prove who you are and despite all that the vendor is never sure you are who you are.
A: He has to get verified, there could be forgeries, he is not qualified to check the veracity of that. Now imagine a situation where he says I am Shivaram. It says what is the proof, then he says there is my UID number, why don't you type it in. But a number, anybody can come and give: a number is not the proof, whereas ill ask for some biometric, either a fingerprint or an iris or whatever, so then lets say I have an iris machine and I just look into the iris machine. Then my application will (automatically) say: the person with this iris has come to my office he says his name is Shivaram Prasad, is he Shivaram Prasad? Yes/no? They send it over the internet, he gets back the message which says yes or no. Now your application could be so designed that you just take that simple yes/no, 0/1 whatever way that comes, and then say issue a card, you don't even need physical intervention. The software can actually move to the next step, so it becomes very transparent. You dont even know what happened, you just walked in, you looked into the camera, typed in your name and it said the door opened you can go.
Imagine at an airport, I mean I am just giving a fanciful application, i book my ticket, they'll know I am Shivaram Prasad. So the computers of the airlines at that airport will know that a certain person has booked his ticket and his name is Shivram Prasad. Right now, when I walk in, at the enterance I have to pull out my printout, I need to take id and then, the security checks, and then i walk in, again i need to give my id again to the airport, to the airline person and all that. Imagine (instead) that I'm walking in and looking into the IRIS, the computer knows that there is a person by the name of Shivram Prasad who has got a flight on some Kingfisher airline or something, it sends an msg to the CIDR, uid and then it comes back saying, hey there is a person by this name, who has got a ticket. I don't even need to know who that person is, he has a valid ticket, just walk in, the door will open, you walk in.
Very easy transparent way, I dont need to show anything, the door opens the (moment) I walk in, and you can have it in such a way that you can put it in a sequence where a guy at the begining will, where we are at a distance of ten feet distance or something, he looks into the camera over here, the iris camera, and by the time he reaches there the message comes yes/no the door should open or not. Huh? you understand?
A bit fanciful but I don't think it cant be done.
Q: But that will also make sense if all of these databases have their own yes/no structure, but when is that laterally interacting with each other? When a person who has a bank account will be the same person who has this ration card, will be the same person you know who has this let's say NREGA account?
A: Yeah yeah
Q: And when you have lateral movements there will be major technological challenges especially if a single smartcard is expected to over time....
A: That is why there is no single Smartcard.
Q: It might be in the future as I understand it: people are intending to integrate all of them.
A: See basically, a Smartcard as I have said has got size limitations. Eventually, if the prices of memory crash, and you get bigger and bigger and bigger smartcards, eventually you may have your whole database on there. Now that and UID are not connected: that has to be very clear, because then you get into issues like privacy. If I lose my smartcard somebody picks up all the data on that chip, everything about me, that becomes a problem from a practical implementation perspective. Instead, lead anybody to his application, it doesn't matter, leave it to the world, you know, every individual designs his own application, all I am doing from the UID perspective is, I am just verifying yes, he is who he claims to be, eventually you may even say his address is what he claims to be but that may be difficult for people who keep moving from place to place. So that's a different aspect of it. Right now I am Shivram Prasad, period. Now its upto me and the front end entity to design my applications: whatever applications, if i am the rural development authority I have a certain requirement which I may want to use.
Now yes, I do agree that if you need to integrate the rural development authority with the state bank, ok, you know in most computer databases, you have this rdbmps concept, where you have multiple tables linked through a primary key. That is how it will work: that unique ID is that. The UID is absolutely unique so that will become the link to any table which is there, virtual table, because they are all different company databases no? you understand it?
Q: In the UID form, there are some things that are optional, like mobile number. So in your enrollment centers, from what you have seen, when people give their mobile numbers like I saw yesterday, do people realize that they were optional? Have you faced a situation where people say look, there is some information i will give and the rest I won't.
A: I agree, i understand
Q: I am just curious to see how people respond to that?
Q: [laughs] To be very honest, issues like you mentioned are issues which a small segment of the of society are conscious about: things like not giving mobile numbers not giving email ids
Q: Also there is thing: I have to 'agree' for my UID to be linked to financial thing, it's not very clear to me.
A: See, what happens is educated people, people who are well aware of the dangers so to say, you know, 'danger', I would say within quotes, of sharing these kind of things, will refuse, no? In a normal situation where some website asks you for your email Id or your mobile number, you may not even give, it you don't want to get pesteredby marketing people. In this situation it's slightly different, most of the people are of a different strata of society, you know, the average Indian population. For them the issues are a bit different in the sense that if I don't give my mobile number and somebody needs to contact me about my ration card, or some other benefit is due to me, how will they contact me? A postman delivering their letter to you? How will he contact you? From that perspective not giving this data may actually inconvenience you.
So if you look at it in that way yes! now the danger of this data going into wrong hands is a valid question, it is seen that the data is encrypted and transferred in an encrypted form to the regitrar and to the UID. So this data going out (into wrong hands), the probability is exteremely low. The only time where it is not in an encrypted form is when he is giving it to you, even when he is giving it to you those few 3-4 minutes that he is giving you the data when you say save and you finish the application, finish the enrollment, it becomes encrypted. but yes, on the form he writes it the data is there, but that goes to a government entity.
A: i have not found people really objecting to it.
Q: I suppose the other related question is, I don't know exactly how much of these questions are mandatory and how many of them are optional, for example the question are you married? is it an optional or mandatory question?
A: look at it this way
Q: No i had a simple, I had a simple question, which is that, would you feel that as this process grows and changes, that some degree of counselling or explaining (needs to be put in place) to people as to what exactly their rights are, and what they have to fill in and what they need not fill in? I agree with you most indians would not see their cellphone numbers as a privacy matter but the question, are you married?, some may see it as a private matter and say I dont have to tell you because I have a live-in relationship or there might be other sensitivities.
A: I agree, there, the form that they fill in has the asterix on the mandatory field and the people who are aware of these kind of issues will also probabaly be aware that when the asterix is not there is not mandatory. But i do agree that as time goes when more educated people start taking Aadhaar, (this will arise). Right now, because it's the first phase of the project, most of the people who are taking it are weaker sections of the populace, where the process is directly linked to benefits. Especially in AP where it's linked to the ration card department. So everything is there. For them it is a bit different no? they are more looking at it as a convenience based project. But eventually yes it would become that and i think as the project goes ahead you know, because it is an evolving project and based feedback from people like you, they can probably add more and more features, like (for instance) making the Aadhaar portion online. (If that happened) everything would be there, explained to you in writing, and you save it in some csv file or encrypted file, and just bring that to the station and they upload it.
Or maybe you could even go as far as the demographics and all these kind of informations can be saved as an encrypted file which only you have, and you can come to the Center because i can't do biometrics online. I can do the demographics online, so I bring that encrypted file, I load it and link it to set of biometrics so even that slightest possibility of me knowing anything about you could be reduced. It's like, anything is possible in the first phase of the project, I think they designed it in this way, and eventually probably, these kind of innovations - the more that you think about it, educated people may be willing to go online and get their encrypted file bring it to the Center and give just the biometrics.
Q: Last question, becaude we have taken a lot of your time. I wanted to know if the way that Aadhaar has been envisaged really requires extraordinarily perfect connectivity
Does its vision allow for connectivity across the country, given that it is primarily a server-client based online structure. If that is the vision
it might be two decades before such a vision can be realised in this country. Would you say that the modes that we are following are likely to bypass that problem, or are we likely to depart from the vision itself?
A: I'll put it this way. Nobody can actually predict how fast technology can spread. A few years back I think 2-3 years back having a 512 kbps internet connection was a luxury.
Today, you don't even think of 512, you know, you think of 1mbps, 2mbps, bandwidth prices are crashing and along with that parallel developments whats happening is you getting 3G coming in. Now 3G may be for mobile phones, but as 3G comes in the access to higher bandwidth would spread to the entire length and breath of india.
Q: in the perceivable future?
A: 3G is already started coming in, i think the, already people have launched the applications, I mean launched the servers. In Hyderabad also Apr 4th or so is the lauch. Vodafone has already launched, Airtel is launching in Hyderabad. Now 3G will roll out across india because they have a license and if they don't make use of that heavy investment they will have bought it at a huge cost no? They are going to the length and breath of India that will be covered with 3g.
A: Apart from this you will have broadband connectivity, there is technology which is moving in terms of moving electricity lines: they are talking about how to use it for taking data with you and railways are talking about it, there are so many new things which are happening. in a matter of 3-4 years all this would spread.
So these connectivities which are envisaged will be there, if not through the computers, you will have your telephones or mobiles phones which are connecting, you have tablets which are coming which are almost like a computer no?
So I dont think there is any reason to fear about all these kind of things: connectivity within 2-3 years would be almost 100%.
Q: So then smartcards might well be on the street because it will mostly be online transactions?
A: The way you will look at a Smartcard is there is a chip which stores some data, it's put on a card, so you call it a Smartcard. You put it on a sim, that is also a smart card, and at Smartchips we are ideally positioned for that because we have the biggest SEZs which are exporting SIM cards. so where you put the chip changes what you call it. But essentially whether it is, in a laptop or in a mobile phone, it is still a smart whatever, smart phone, I think now its called smart phone.
Pad.ma requires JavaScript.
