New government projects drive somnolent smart card mart

‘‘There were only 10-15 mn SIM cards in India till last year. The additions are 1 to 1.5 mn a month, so the potential is huge,’’ says Markus Mosen, vice president, marketing for secure mobile solutions at Infineon Technologies Asia-Pacific, the world’s biggest smart card maker.

More opportunity exists in government projects: New vehicle driving licences and registration papers in Delhi, for one, will be smart card based beginning next fortnight. Gujarat, Maharasthtra and Goa have working projects for smart cards, and a pilot in the north east will test applicability of smart citizen I-cards next year.

‘‘The National ID Card will be India’s biggest step towards enabling electronic transactions, record storage and identification,’’ says Ashok Chandak, manager of all Infineon’s smart card sales in South East Asia and India. But smart card technology has already marched far ahead from the prepaid phone cards that are passed off as smart cards in India.

‘‘The purposes are limited in India, but we have waited several years for changes in vehicle registration itself,’’ says Navnit Gulati, whose Shonkh Technologies Intl Ltd has bagged the Rs 148 cr order to provide smart cards to 4 mn vehicle owners in Delhi over five years . The problem of mass-use, however, still nags Asia, especially India — despite benefits of smart cards for high-fraud countries like Korea, Malayasia, Taiwan, China and India.