Nilekani quits Infosys board; to head
Identification Project
Nandan Nilekani is a well-known name in the Indian business
circle, especially in the IT field. He is the co-founder and Co-chairman of India’s second largest IT Company Infosys. Under his leadership, the company has achieved several feats, and is going strong.
We have seen how the company has taken care of its employees in particular and the society at large, which is the result of the farsightedness of its leaders like chairman N. R. Narayana Murthy and the current Co-chairman
Nandan Nilekani.
The news that he will leave the current post of Co-chairman for a bigger cause of this country is indeed welcome information, although the employees of Infosys would miss him immensely. He served the company as Managing Director between the period 2002 and 2007, and then took over the post of Co-chairman of the Board of Directors. The Infosys Board has accepted his resignation with effect from 9 July 2009.
UIDAI (Unique
Identification Authority of India) is the new organization to be set up to provide unique identity to a targeted population of the country for getting proper benefits from government schemes. Nilekani will become the Chairman of the UIDAI, and will implement the scheme. He will hold the rank equivalent to cabinet minister in his post as chairperson of UIDAI. The stopgap finance minister Pranab Mukherjee in the last government allocated Rs. 100 Crores for UIDAI in the interim budget presented on 16 February 2009.
On his appointment as the chairman of UIDAI, the chairman of Infosys Narayana Murthy commented, “We are glad that an extraordinary individual like Nandan has got an opportunity to add value to India through this position. As a company that has always put the interest of society ahead of itself, Infosys will accept his absence with a sense of duty to a larger cause.”
Being at the helm of UIDAI, Nilekani will be responsible for all planning, policies, and implementation of the Identification scheme. The government schemes that would need the help of UIDAI are National Rural Employment Guarantee, Sarba Sihksha Aviyaan, National Rural Health Mission, and Bharat Nirman. UIDAI has been set up to minimize the malpractices prevalent in the government schemes, and to see that the benefits reach the appropriate targets.
The government is also thinking to set up UIDAI in every state with its own commissioner.
We are happy to know a person like Nilekani would be the chairperson of UIDAI. He would certainly implement policies without encouraging malpractices, we believe.