Protean wins Rs 1160 crore contract to set up Aadhaar Seva Kendras

Protean eGov Technologies has won a contract from UIDAI to set up and operate Aadhaar Seva Kendras across 188 districts. The order, valued at around Rs 1,160 crore excluding taxes and Rs 1,370 crore including taxes, will involve creating dedicated infrastructure and providing managed services for enrolments, demographic and biometric updates, and other walk-in services.

The scope of work includes manpower, infrastructure, and hardware deployment.Aadhaar, which covers more than 1.4 billion Indians, is the world’s largest biometric identity system. The demand for services continues to expand, driven by new births, mandatory biometric updates at the ages of 5 and 15, demographic corrections, and pending enrolments. Shares of Protean rose 1.5% in the stock exchanges on Thursday.With this contract, the company becomes the only entity managing both Aadhaar and PAN services, two identifiers central to the country’s digital framework. “This mandate marks a defining chapter in Protean’s journey of nation-building through population-scale digital public infrastructure,” said Suresh Sethi, managing director and chief executive officer. He said the company aims to extend secure and inclusive identity services across urban and rural India.

For nearly three decades, the firm has been part of the backbone of digital public infrastructure, from PAN and pension systems to ONDC and eKYC. The new project adds to its role in supporting the Govt’s plan for a secure, inclusive, citizen-first digital India.Protean eGov Technologies, formerly NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure, was the main service provider for the Income Tax Department’s PAN system for nearly two decades, running thousands of centers, processing millions of applications, and deriving about half its revenue from PAN services. In 2025, the company suffered a setback when the Income Tax Department excluded it from the PAN 2.0 project, a major upgrade of the system.