which is expected to generate business worth several billions of dollars over the next couple of years. The MGRM-Bell ID JV will become operational in the next quarter even as an operational team is expected to begin work early as next month.

MGRM Net is the Indian Subsidiary of the US-based MGRM group. It is also one of the Indian's largest E-governance firm and is currently executing a slew of projects for leading educational institutes, pharmaceutical companies and insurance players here. It is also handling several e-governance projects for several state governments and central ministries in India.

Tthe company runs the back-end platform for the health ministry for codifying and classifying all the drugs. Bell ID is the global leader in the field of smart card management and boasts of one of the largest teams in the world dedicated exclusively to developing software that manages the life-cycle of cards and their associated applications and cryptographic keys.

"This JV synergisies the unique strengths of both MGRM & Bell ID. Bell ID has experience in managing an unrivalled portfolio of international customers in many key markets while MGRM is the first in the world to offer research based integrated E-governance platforms." Dr. KVR Murthy, founder of MGRM Net told ET.

According to the chairman of Bell ID, Pat B Curran, India offered exciting prospects in this emerging space.