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

"This is a 50:50 joint venture, and combines strengths of both MGRM and Bell ID," MGRM Group Founder KVR Murthy said.

While the Rotterdam-based Bell ID is into managing identification programmes across diverse geographies, MGRM has developed and managed research-based 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 US $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.