Speaking at the Twentieth Annual Vikram Sarabhai Memorial Lecture in India Habitat Centre here on Tuesday, Nilekani outlined the links between Information Technology and development in India. The lecture was organised jointly by Indian Council of Social Science Research and Vikram Sarabhai Memorial Foundation.

Nilekani said: “Each citizen in this country should have a unique identification number which is crucial for development. We need something like the American Social Security Number for every Indian. Subsidies here do not reach the poor. In order to trace people who have been left out, this unique number becomes important.” Currently, Infosys and New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) are finalising a free Wi-fi network for New Delhi’s NDMC areas. “Wi-fi and Wi-max are technologies which I am confident will reach villages in India within a decade,” he added.

Picking up examples, Nilekani said, the mobile phone industry is a good example of technology access and small value transactions impacting human lives. “The mobile phone has become smaller, cheaper. In 50 years we had around 60 million phone connections in India. But we have 6 million mobile phone connections in just one month, which means 72 million in one year. The price of prepaid recharge, which is a way of buying time in advance, has also come down. This means we are providing low cost access to a service that a host of people did not have,” he said.

But the goal should be to use technology in problem areas, he added.