New Delhi: The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry, in lieu of introducing educational reforms in the country has decided to take the help of Unique Identity (UID) number project primarily to bring over 80 lakh 'out of school' children into the education system.

The ministry also proposes under the pilot project to ask UID authorities to also include educational institutions i.e., both schools and colleges in their agenda.

"Children, whether they are on streets or those living on margins, should be brought to schools and UID is the first such system which shall integrate the process," said an official.

The ministry to civil society groups would outsource the work and will share this cost with them to get children into schools. The cost per person calculated by authorities in UID comes up to Rs.200 to provide the ID numbers.

The ministry to UID authority, simultaneously is also stressing upon the availability of IDs to 220 million children in schools and 26 million in colleges.

"Once we are through with this process of granting UIDs to children, then we will develop a child tracking system in cooperation with state governments," the official said.

The HRD ministry is already mulling to demat school and college certificates.

"Demat project would be linked to the UID. The ID would be present on every certificate so along with keeping a track of the student it will check the number of fake certificates and will also help track the educational loan defaulters," the official added.

UID is largely planned by the HRD officials not only for tracing for the regulatory purposes, but along with the universities and Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) has also thought of providing the luxury of mobility to students.

Students are free to join different courses from different universities as the IITs mull the inter-IIT mobility of students.

"Introduction of UID would help students move their accounts from one institution to another," said the official.

It will also eliminate duplicity of enrollment in government as well as private schools.

"The accurate and truthful information will also keep a sharp eye on the chanced of pilfering scarce resources available for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Mid-Day Meal scheme," the ministry had earlier told UID authority.