The joint venture will become operational in the next quarter or as soon as necessary formalities are completed, MRGM said in a statement.

'This is a 50:50 joint venture, and combines strengths of both MGRM and Bell ID,' said MGRM group founder K.V.R. Murthy.

While the Rotterdam-based Bell ID is into managing identification programmes across diverse geographies, MGRM has developed and managed researchbased integrated IT applications in different domains in India.

The central government has proposed a single national ID for Indian citizens to ensure the efficient delivery of public services, and help government identify illegal immigrants more easily.

It created a national ID agency - Unique Identification Authority - in February, earmarking for it an initial corpus of $20 million.

The massive exercise, which has set an ambitious goal of rolling out 100 million cards in the next three years, has evoked interest among bio-metric systems providers.