This is the second tender to be awarded by the authority led by former Infosys CEO and co-founder, Nandan Nilekani, in a series of contracts totaling $1 billion.
The UID project is being watched globally by governments, service providers and vendors because of the scale and complexity involved in providing a unique, verifiable identity to over a billion Indians.
Companies, both global and Indian, are competing for different parts of this huge project, the largest undertaken by any government. The first tender for software application development was awarded to Mindtree.
Intelenet spokesperson declined to comment when Economic Times contacted. Trading in shares of Sparsh BPO, the domestic arm of Intelenet Global Services, was frozen after there were only buyers at Rs 57.20, the upper end of the 5 percent intra-day circuit filter.
In many ways, this could be one of the most challenging assignments in the UID project as it involves directly interfacing with the citizens. "The vendor will be required to provide services in the official languages of all the states, no matter where the centre is located," said an executive with a BPO firm. The contract is expected to start small from around 100-150 seats and scale up to around 2000 as volumes pick up.
The potential for revenues to scale up as call volumes grow is just one of the upsides of winning the deal. The prestige of being associated with such a project brings along many intangible benefits, said analysts and outsourcing experts.
"There is tremendous upside for the player who wins the deal. Of course, it's an open question how much the revenues will scale up but it will be financially viable because there will be volumes. Indians are people who want answers," said Alok Shende, Principal Analyst with technology research firm, Ascentius Consulting.
"Globally there are not many nations that have opted for such an identity project. For any company to be part of it is prestigious. It will give them credibility to bid for similar projects abroad and other projects in the government. Even if opportunities overseas are not considered, there is enough opportunity within the government here," he added.
The pricing for the contract will be based on number of calls per minute. Earlier Economic Times has reported that the BPO winning the contract would have to operate 8 am to 8 pm, six days a week and on all festivals, delivering customer care through calls, e-mails , pull-and-push SMS, fax and traditional means like letters and postcards.
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