Penza, 10 January 2013. PenzaNews. One thousand of universal electronic cards (UEC) are expected to be received by the Penza region by the end of January 2013. This was announced by the deputy head of UEC project of JSC “Operator of electronic government” Vitaly Komissarov.

“Currently, the cards are printed in Gosznak corporation,” he commented, explaining that the delay in issuing the cards probably occurred because of the complexity of the project, which is being implemented in the country for the first time.

In turn, the head of the department of informatization of the Penza region Alexander Antonov said that the region has done the whole amount of work planned to prepare for the introduction of UEC.

“The necessary infrastructure has been created, the residents are welcome to submit their applications. The only thing which is missing is the cards, and this is not our responsibility, but the authorized organization,” he said.

According to Alexander Antonov, over 800 applications for UEC have been received by now, most of them — from civil servants.

UEC is a plastic card that contains data about the citizen, electronic signature, a banking application, and can be used to receive social and public services, as well as to pay utility bills.

The federal coordinator and the project operator is JSC “UEC.”

Within the region, the responsibility for the project implementation lies on the department of informatization of the Penza region, which signed a contract with JSC “Operator of electronic government” in March 2012 worth 49,980 thousand rubles.

In 2012, the contractor received over 41,5 million rubles. According to the contract, the activities must be completed by March 2013.