Global open source technology solutions provider, Red Hat, will not bid directly for Request for Proposals (RFPs) for the Unique Identity Card project but continue to participate in the project through its partners, a senior company official said.

"We are not directly into any of the UID projects directly, because we are not in system integration. But we are working through our partners," Red Hat India's President and Managing Director, Nandu Pradhan, told reporters here today.

The company was working at all levels in the UID projects, Pradhan said, adding that all RFPs so far floated are based on open source.

"We have won some of the RFPs through consortia of partners who are front-ending for us. We are working on the biometric side with some of the partners. We do it in a systematic way," Pradhan said.

MindTree was the first IT company to have bagged the contract for design, development, testing, integration, support and maintenance of the UID application software.

The Government plans to issue the first set of UIDs between August 2010 and February 2011. The Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI) plans to issue 600-million UIDs over the next five-years.