On Friday, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) gave contract to three IT-related companies for making UID contract.

Two of the companies are Indian while one is a US-based firm. The names are Accenture, Mahindra Satyam-Morpho and L1 Identity Solutions.

UID is the implementation of the core biometric identification system and is put under the name of 'Aadhaar' program.

Earlier it was said that the consortium of Accenture-MindTree-Daon was the lowest bidder and they had quoted the price of Rs. 2.75 per transaction. The other two bidders were thus asked to match the same price.

India's population is 1.2 billion and the program is about providing unique identification to make the work during the welfare schemes easier and simpler. Once in place, UID is going to be the largest of its kind in the world.

The three final companies will have to look after and manage the biometrics solutions in Aadhar. This means that they need to design, supply, install, commission, maintenance and support of the Automatic Biometric Identification Subsystem (ABIS).

In the consortium, Mahindra Satyam has partnered with France's Morpho while HP partnered US-based L1 ID Solutions.