The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) plans to allow telecom service providers to use Aadhar cards to verify the identity of cellular phone customers shortly.

"We will soon allow telecom service providers to use the unique identification number to verify identities of their customers. We would like to have proof of concept validation with telecom service providers like Vodafone and Airtel for the same," UIDAI's Chief Product Manager Sanjay Jain said.

Incidentally, the project has been witnessing a backlog due to the huge volume.

"We have been enrolling around one million people a day.

Filed enrollments are happening at a slower rate. The backlog is due to infrastructure related issues. But we hope to resolve these as soon as possible," he said.

The authority is keen on authenticating online transactions made through smart phone eventually, though no details were revealed.

"UIDAI is an application platform. Both banks and telecom service providers are welcome to use this platform and build their systems around it," he said.

The authority is also looking at whether it must work with the National Population Register (NPR), which is a project run by the Registrar General of India (RGI).

"We have not decided if we should work with the NPR. We may do it if and when we decide to do so," he said.

Incidentally, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has been advised to introduce RuPay cards, which compete with VISA and Mastercard, under the Aadhar Enabled Payment System (AEPS). Besides, ATM transactions too would be authenticated by the UIDAI.

UIDAI, along with NPCI, has already piloted Aadhaar- enabled Payment System in Jharkhand, and over 60 banks have registered to be part of this network, sources said.