It just might. At least in the South, West and the Northwest (Punjab, Haryana) with the civic machinery to execute the idea with reasonable efficiency and acceptable levels of corruption.

In what are cynically known as the BIMARU states (an acronym for Bihar, Madhya Pradash, Rajasthan and Uttaranchal/Uttarkhand, as well as the Hindi word for "diseased"... the states with the biggest, poorest populations, and worst civic infrastructure) and the North East (which is usually rumbling with some sort of secessionist sentiment), I'd be very doubtful.

I certainly see the value of it. Rationalizing land titles and the associated bureaucracy via computerization has been a huge boost in the parts of India where it worked (as Hernando de Soto would have predicted). Identity is another such basic enabler of civic society.

I grew up in the era when ration cards (ostensibly a temporary measure during the pre-Green Revolution era of scarcity that morphed into a permanent identity scheme) were the main form of identity, since most people didn't have drivers' licenses or passports, but most did buy a few basic commodities from the price-controlled public distribution system (in our case, sugar and kerosine, for poor people, lower-quality rice/wheat as well). Back then, the cards were little cloth-bound books that were registered in hand-written bureaucratic files. Things may have gotten somewhat computerized now, I don't know.

The ration card was central to everything -- it was a proof of address, citizenship (which created a black market for illegal Bangladeshi migrants, who are sort of the Mexicans of India), and with supporting evidence, proof of caste affiliations which brought affirmative action benefits.

I have some serious doubts about a national ID card without a core use case attached, but making identity-verification a more modern, digital, transparent and efficient system would be a huge benefit to the most exploited sections of society, which suffer unduly under the current archaic ration-card scheme, where the paper-based model creates a lot of room for corruption and social immobility.

But if anyone can do it, Nilekani probably can.