One of the reasons I tend to like Indian tech industry executives is that most of them seem to not just be in it for the money. Many of them care deeply about India and the welfare of their fellow citizens. So I was excited and gratified a few days ago when I learned that Nandan Nilekani, the co-chairman of Infosys, had been chosen by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to run the country’s national identity project. As co-founder and one-time CEO of Infosys, Nilekani helped build one of India’s most important tech companies--an organization with a well-deserved global reputation for quality work and integrity. Now he will run a massive program that could help improve the lives of hundreds of millions of Indians and break the back of the culture of corruption that has long hobbled the best impulses of government.

This is perhaps the largest information technology project ever undertaken. (In fact, when I interviewed Nilekani on the phone last evening, he jokingly called it, “The mother of all IT projects.”) At the end of five years, Nilekani hopes that most of the country’s 1.05 billion people will be listed in a huge database. They‘ll be identifiable via a variety of biometric data, including fingerprints and, perhaps, face imagery.

Indian leaders have been talking about some sort of national ID system for a number of years. The main elements they focused on were using identity cards to help track terrorists or turn them back at borders; or to improve the flow of social benefits to poor people. But Nilekani has a much grander vision. He sees the national ID system as a giant cloud computing service that can be tapped by the central and state governments and private industry to authenticate peoples’ identities--saving a lot of money, opening up banking services to the poor, and assuring that social welfare benefits get to the people they’re intended for. He believes the project could transform Indian society. But while Nilekani’s ambitions are huge, he’s taking nothing for granted. “It’s just a vision so far. I haven’t even taken charge yet,” he told me.

His mentor and co-founder at Infosys, N.R. Narayana Murthy, says Nilekani’s appointment marks a significant moment in the country’s history. “It demonstrates the coming of age of India,” he says. Murthy points out that while Indira Gandhi appointed a few business leaders to government posts in the 1980s, they were secretaries to   the cabinet ministers. Putting Nilekani in at the ministerial level is a big shift and an important signal about the changing relationship of government and the private sector. “It shows the confidence of politicians in the private sector and it signals that they recognize the importance of public/private partnerships,” Murthy says.

In the past half decade, there have been a handful of citizen identity projects in a number of states. TCS, one of Infosys’ tech industry rivals, has been instrumental in some of the early efforts. And the results of some of the programs it has been involved in show the potential of Nilekani’s initiative. For instance, since an ID project was launched in the state of Andhra Pradesh two years ago, individuals have established 2.5 million postal savings accounts--compared to only 600,000 in the previous 50-plus years. S. Ramadorai, CEO of TCS, wrote me in an e-mail that the national program will have much broader effects. “It will serve as a vehicle for uniting people in the country,” he wrote.

Nilekani will face many challenges. They’ll be technical, political, and cultural. But I believe the most significant challenge will be the desire of corrupt officials to thwart him. It has been estimated that only about 10% of the money that’s appropriated for social welfare in India actually finds its way to the intended recipients. The rest goes to administrative overhead and to so-called “leakage”--government officials and their cronies putting their fingers in the pot. Having a national ID system will make it easier see how the money flows and where it’s diverted--and to stop or slow down the diversions. The thieves will work hard to keep their scams going. But if Nilekani and his massive database get the support of the many willing-to-be-honest officials, the tide could be turned.

And if the tide can be turned in India, it can be turned elsewhere. The whole world will be to watching to see if the combination of technology, enlightened public policy, and integrity will win out.