Even after a long haul of more than a year, Unique Identification Authority of India is still to find its own identity.

The authority which was established as an attached office under the Planning Commission is still to get constitutional recognition. UIDAI Chairman, Nandan Nilekani in an exclusive interview to Governance Now had stated last month that a team is working on the UID Act and latest press releases mention that the act will be out for public feedback next month.

Even though the authority has finally got an office in the LIC building, a brand name in Aadhaar and a website (www.uidai.gov.in), its employees use regular e-mail ids as the website doesn't host a mail service. So, even chairman Nadan Nilekani has to make do with a NIC hosted e-mail [email protected]. No [email protected] for him, as it stands . The employees in most cases are using the popular Google mail service, gmail. Even the visiting card of the director general, R.S.Sharma mentions his id as [email protected] and so does the website of planning commission.

It is also learnt that the complete staff of UIDAI is either on deputation from other government offices or is outsourced and is on payrolls of a public private agency, National Institute of Smart Government (NISG). 

It still remains to be seem how long this identity crisis lingers for the body that will be assigning unique numerical identities to all of us in this country.