Bill Gates Praises Aadhaar and Funds World Bank to Replicate Model in Other Countries

Multi-billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates is impressed with India's Aadhaar technology and he has funded the World Bank to take the technology to other countries.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation believes the technology is "worth emulating," and Bill recently confirmed to Indian news agency PTI that Nandan Nilekani, considered the chief architect of the Aadhaar, has been helping the World Bank with the technology.

"The benefits of that (Aadhaar) are very high," Bill said. "Yes, other countries should adopt the approach (of Aadhaar) because the quality of governance has a lot to do with how quickly countries are able to grow their economy and empower their people."

"We have funded the World Bank to take this Aadhaar approach to many other countries," he said.

Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique identity number for Indians citizens and it is based on their biometric and demographic data. At present, more than a billion people have enrolled in Aadhaar.

The implementation of Aadhaar has been embroiled in controversy, with many alleging the system poses privacy risk. Refuting these claims, Bill noted that the Aadhaar in itself is just a bio identification verification scheme.

"The individual applications that use Aadhaar, you have to look and see what's been stored and who has access to that information. And so, application by application, you have to make sure that's well managed. In the case of the financial bank account I think it's handled very well," the 62-year-old said.

Reportedly, several countries have approached India for assistance to implement a similar system.

Bill also praised India's prime minister Narendra Modi for the successful implementation of Aadhaar.

Earlier this year, Modi said Aadhaar has lent “great strength” to the country’s development and noted that benefits were now being directed to the intended beneficiaries. “Aadhaar has added great strength to India’s development,” Modi said in January.