State Bank of India has been made the first registrar of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

SBI has been given the responsibility to collect demographic as well as biometric information of its account holder base of 170 million. SBI is the first bank to partner with UID authority which has taken up this gigantic project of providing unique identification numbers to the billion numbered citizen base of India by August this year.

The method of collection of demographics has been specified by the authority. These include name, age, gender, address and the guardian's name - and biometric attributes like the face, all 10 fingerprints and an iris scan.

"Other than SBI, we are also in consultation with 10 public sector banks which will capture data and give it to us," confirmed a highly-placed official from the UIDAI. "The data with many banks is not in a clean position and this will give them the opportunity to do so. It for the SBI to decide whether the existing account holders will be converted to the UID format or linking the new customers with the UIDs," he said.

The official also informed that 21 state governments have also been made a part of this project with the exception of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Jammu and Kashmir and the North Eastern states. "We will sign MoUs with all states by July 15 and get them on board. The first set of Aadhaars will be issued between August this year and February 2011."

LIC has also agreed to share its database with UID authority.