In 2009, I became extremely concerned with the concept of Unique Identity for various reasons. Connected with many like minded highly educated people who were all concerned.
On 18th May 2010, I started this Blog to capture anything and everything I came across on the topic. This blog with its million hits is a testament to my concerns about loss of privacy and fear of the ID being misused and possible Criminal activities it could lead to.
In 2017 the Supreme Court of India gave its verdict after one of the longest hearings on any issue. I did my bit and appealed to the Supreme Court Judges too through an On Line Petition.
In 2019 the Aadhaar Legislation has been revised and passed by the two houses of the Parliament of India making it Legal. I am no Legal Eagle so my Opinion carries no weight except with people opposed to the very concept.
In 2019, this Blog now just captures on a Daily Basis list of Articles Published on anything to do with Aadhaar as obtained from Daily Google Searches and nothing more. Cannot burn the midnight candle any longer.
"In Matters of Conscience, the Law of Majority has no place"- Mahatma Gandhi
Ram Krishnaswamy
Sydney, Australia.

Aadhaar

The UIDAI has taken two successive governments in India and the entire world for a ride. It identifies nothing. It is not unique. The entire UID data has never been verified and audited. The UID cannot be used for governance, financial databases or anything. It’s use is the biggest threat to national security since independence. – Anupam Saraph 2018

When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi

“The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right.” Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi

“There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.”-A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order.

Legal scholar Usha Ramanathan describes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says.

Good idea gone bad
I have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and today’s technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha

“What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesn’t determine who is eligible and who isn’t,” Jairam Ramesh

But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP

“I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary,” Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017.

August 24, 2017: The nine-judge Constitution Bench rules that right to privacy is “intrinsic to life and liberty”and is inherently protected under the various fundamental freedoms enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World; indeed it's the only thing that ever has"

“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden

In the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Arora, one of the senior counsel in the case, compared it to living under a general, perpetual, nation-wide criminal warrant.

Had never thought of it that way, but living in the Aadhaar universe is like living in a prison. All of us are treated like criminals with barely any rights or recourse and gatekeepers have absolute power on you and your life.

Announcing the launch of the # BreakAadhaarChainscampaign, culminating with events in multiple cities on 12th Jan. This is the last opportunity to make your voice heard before the Supreme Court hearings start on 17th Jan 2018. In collaboration with @no2uidand@rozi_roti.

UIDAI's security seems to be founded on four time tested pillars of security idiocy

1) Denial

2) Issue fiats and point finger

3) Shoot messenger

4) Bury head in sand.

God Save India

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

9196 - Infrastructural, legal issues are hurdles to Digital India’s success - Live Mint

Last Modified: Tue, Dec 22 2015. 03 35 PM IST


Concept huge responsibility on law ministry to ensure laws are updated and not ambiguous for someone to misuse, say analysts

Srishti Gupta and Harveen Ahluwalia

The Digital India initiative aims to provide Internet access to remote parts of the country through a wireless network.

New Delhi: The implementation of many e-governance projects is no measure of the success of the Digital India initiative, as experts are of the view that it has been unable to make the desired impact due to legal and infrastructural issues.

“The Digital India concept is glorified by India but it is a huge responsibility on the shoulders of the law ministry to make sure that the laws are updated and not ambiguous for someone to misuse,” Ashish Chandra, general counsel of Snapdeal, said at the 43rd National Convention of Company Secretaries organized by the Institute of Company Secretaries of India held in New Delhi on Friday.

“The legal challenges that Digital India might face are that the laws are still outdated. There are spectrum issues, data privacy issues and product liability issues,” he added.

The Digital India initiative aims to provide Internet access to remote parts of the country through a wireless network.

“It is not a Digital India but a bureaucratic India; not from the government’s side but from a legal aspect. Though certain laws have been made like IT Act, yet the laws are not keeping pace with the changing technology,” he said.

Speaking at the event, Premkumar Seshadri, executive vice-chairman and managing director of HCL Infosystems Ltd, said the concept of digital divide has changed with respect to the number of Internet users from across the nation.

“Digital power, in the hands of the citizens, is the first step towards the empowerment of the citizens. We have been able to make things easier by bringing transparency in the processes, making them online and removing human intervention,” he said.

Seshadri also emphasized that with the digitized Aadhaar unique identity number project, real-time e-governance has emerged. The legal case against Aadhaar violating privacy is to be heard by a yet-to-be-constituted constitution bench of the Supreme Court.

However, the execution speed of digital initiatives will have to be expedited. Law secretary P.K. Malhotra said Digital India is an ambitious project launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but in reality, it has been going on for more than two decades. “But the government can’t succeed unless the entire industry participates as a whole,” he said.

In a session on ease of doing business, experts echoed that rules and laws that will lead to an environment that fosters easy business needs to be emphasized.

“There is a lack of time frame in the government and even when there is a time frame, nobody follows it. There is a certain inability in the department to take calls because the architecture of legislation is complex,” said Ketan Dalal, chairman of the direct tax committee of Indian Merchants Chamber, a lobby group.

Dalal believes that in India, there is a tendency to over-legislate, which becomes an impediment to business. “We have to move faster. Everything has to have a time limit. There is a need for a holistic approach,” he said.

India ranked 130 among 189 nations in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business 2016 rankings. The National Democratic Alliance government has launched a drive to improve the country’s business environment, speed up approvals for businesses to boost manufacturing and job creation, and bring transparency and stability to tax rates.
srishti.g@livemint.com


9195 - Measures for improving the Targeted Public Distribution System - Business Standard


Delhi 
December 18, 2015 Last Updated at 00:20 IST


The Government has taken various measures for modernising and improving the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) including implementation of a Plan Scheme on End-to-end computerisation of TPDS operations across the country under the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) at a total cost of Rs. 884.07 crore, out of which Government of Indias share is Rs. 489.37 crore and States/UTs share is Rs. 394.70 crore. The cost sharing between centre and States would be on 90:10 basis for North-Eastern States, whereas for other States/UTs, cost will be shared on 50:50 basis. National Informatics Centre (NIC) is the technical partner of the scheme. Financial assistance of Rs. 287.08 crore has already been released to 28 States/UTs, NIC etc till 30.11.2015. This information was given by the Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Shri Ram Vilas Paswan in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today. 

The Minister said that the Component-I of the Plan Scheme provides for undertaking various Information Communications Technology (ICT) based activities, such as, digitization of ration cards/beneficiary and other databases, computerisation of supply-chain management, setting up of transparency portal and grievance redressal mechanism. Under this scheme, as per reports received, as on 31.10.2015, ration card data digitization has been done in 29 States/UTs, ration card data is available on Web Portal in 27 States/UTs, Online allocation is being done in 16 States/UTs, supply-chain management in 8 States/UTs, Transparency Portal set up in 27 States/UTs, online Grievance Redressal Mechanism in 26 and toll free helpline number has been set up in 32 States/UTs. As part of beneficiary data digitization, States/UTs have been requested to seed the Aadhaar numbers wherever available so as to weed out the ineligible/ bogus / duplicate beneficiaries. As part of FPS automation at FPS, use of Aadhaar will ensure proper identification of beneficiaries and distribution of foodgrains only to the intended beneficiaries thereby reducing leakages/diversions, etc. As regards financial assistance, Government has approved FPS dealers margins under NFSA which also includes reimbursement of Rs. 17/qtl. for their expenditure towards purchase and operations of the PoS/Mobile Tablet device at the FPS for automation. So far, more than 56,000 FPSs are automated across the country and this count is likely to be increased to 75,000 FPSs by March, 2016. 

9194 - BharatNet link soon for 3 Haryana districts - Hindu Businessline


OUR BUREAU

       Communication and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad

DELHI, DECEMBER 18:  

Faridabad, Rewari and Sonipat will be connected through BharatNet by February, Communications and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Friday.
In a meeting with Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, Prasad also discussed Digital architecture and help in setting up electronic manufacturing and eGovernance in the state.

Biometric collection

“We have decided to connect three districts – Faridabad, Rewari and Sonipat – through BharatNet by February so that digital programmes in education, healthcare and many others can be started soon,” Prasad told reporters here after the meeting. He said the Centre will also support Haryana government’s initiative of collecting biometrics of children below one year so that it is successful in digitising for programmes in education/ schools, healthcare, etc.
‘Emulate Haryana’

“I have directed Aadhaar/ UIDAI to think doing similar things for the whole country and make digital architecture for that. If you have Aadhaar for the children, it will be good during admission in schools, mid-day meals and vaccinations. We can learn from the Haryana government and should be done across India,” Prasad said.
“Registration of Aadhaar for people of Haryana is almost done and we are planning to create a database for all the services under that so that citizens can get all the benefits,” Khattar said.
(This article was published on December 18, 2015)


9193 - Mahatma Gandhi University Staff Agree to Biometric Attendance Tracking - Find Biometrics

Posted on December 18, 2015

India’s Mahatma Gandhi University is going to start testing a biometric time and attendance tracking system for staff starting January 1st.

A thorough administrative process has been agreed upon, with the university’s Registrar being at the top of the hierarchy in terms of managing the system, but it isn’t yet clear what modality (or modalities) will be used. Still, it’s reasonable to speculate that the system could be linked to Aadhaar, the country’s national biometric citizen registry, given its growing prominence in Indian society; and if that is the case, it’s very likely that fingerprint or iris biometrics, or both, will be used to authenticate school staff identities.
These biometric time and attendance systems have proven controversial in other deployments in the country. When such Aadhaar-based systems were rolled out among government departments, there was some foot-dragging—though it seems to have been implemented successfully overall—and more recently, an attempt to introduce biometric attendance tracking at Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology prompted a mass sit-in in protest.
In MGU’s case, however, the move was agreed upon unanimously by all of the school’s employee organizations, and moreover it’s going to be trialled alongside the continued use of traditional employee tracking, so there’s good reason to expect a successful outcome in keeping with the expanding presence of biometric identification technology in India more generally.

December 18, 2015 – by Alex Perala

9192 - EC tells HC lakhs of duplicate voters exist - TNN

Sagarkumar Mutha | TNN | Dec 19, 2015, 07.05 AM IST


HYDERABAD: In a startling disclosure that might have a bearing on the upcoming civic polls, the Election Commission of India on Friday told the Hyderabad High Court that Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) authorities had indeed deleted names of 6.1 lakh voters and plan to delete eight lakh more categorized as "duplicate." 

Election Commission counsel Avinash Desai told Justice C V Nagarjuna Reddy, who was hearing the case, that the deletion of duplicate votes will be done only after GHMC elections to avoid any further controversy now. 

Justice Reddy questioned as to why such an exercise was not taken up and completed much earlier. "Is it difficult for the EC to detect duplicate votes well in advance?" he asked. 

The revelations were made by the EC counsel in response to pleas by Congress party's GHMC OBC cell chairman Nagesh Mudiraj and TDP leader Feroze Khan -- who had challenged the deletion of over six lakh voters within GHMC purview on various grounds. 

Justice Reddy said that the EC should not take sides and should have taken an unbiased stand. The petitioners contended that the officials are hastening the process of determining ward reservations for Backward Castes without realising that the deletion exercise will result in change of composition of the city's population. 

Ravi Sankar Jandhyala, the counsel for one of the petitioners, told the court that GHMC authorities are preparing to delete 7.9 lakh more voters on the ground that they are 'duplicates'. 

Desai, the EC counsel, told the court that they have received communication from the commission that the authorities have deleted 6.30 lakh votes due to various reasons like shifting of residences, change of address etc. However, following appeals by voters, the officials have restored 20,000 votes.

To a question by the judge, the EC counsel confirmed that this means as many as 6.1 lakh votes were officially deleted. Responding to the allegations on plans to delete eight lakh votes, Avinash furnished to the court a communication he received from the Central Commission in which it was said that the deletion of 7.90 lakh voters that were found with duplicate names will be taken up only after the GHMC elections.

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Pavan Kumar

Explaining their case on duplicate voters, the EC counsel said that there are instances where there are voters registered as Jagannath J and J Jagannath. "One Jagannath is a duplicate vote and we have decided not to delete even such votes till the GHMC elections," Avinash said.

Petitioner's counsel Jandhyala also found fault with the authorities for allowing the staff to go ahead with the process of linking Aadhaar card with voter identity cards. "This is resulting in several problems and that was precisely the reason why the Supreme Court had declared such an exercise an illegal one and directed the authorities not to go ahead with it," he said. "But despite this, the officials here are linking Aadhaar cards with voter cards," he added.

The judge appreciated the petitioners and their counsel for questioning the deletions and bringing in awareness on the issue. "Instead of groping in dark, you did a good thing. Now there is some clarity. Some got their votes restored. Some clarity has come on the total number of votes that were deleted. And also a decision not to delete seven lakh more votes too was taken by the authorities," the judge added.



9191 - Axis Bank partners with eMudhra for e-signature facility - Live Mint

Last Modified: Sat, Dec 19 2015. 12 18 AM IST

Under the eSign Service, individuals with Aadhaar numbers will be able to digitally sign documents to submit to the bank online


Photo: Mint

Mumbai: In a step towards greater customer service through technology, Axis Bank Ltd has introduced e-signature services through which individuals having Aadhaar numbers will be able to digitally sign documents to submit to the bank online, the lender said in a statement on Friday.

Axis Bank, India’s third-largest private sector lender, has partnered with digital security company eMudhra for the eSign service. “The service rides on Aadhaar authentication and generates the digital signature automatically. The generated signature is legally valid and secure,” said the bank.
eMudhra launched the eSign service earlier in July.

While filling an application form for any product of the bank, a customer can request for fixing a digital signature. An instant authentication through the customer’s Aadhaar number generates a valid eSign, after which the customer can proceed to submit documents online. Both existing customers and new customers can avail the service.

“eSign will be integrated with a host of bank’s products and will help in quicker, more efficient and secure processing of customer requests,” said Rajiv Anand, group executive and head (retail banking) at Axis Bank.

At present, a customer has to submit a hard copy of the application form signed along with copies of relevant documents to apply and avail of any product or service of a bank. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) mandates banks to acquire basic information of the customer along with proofs for identity, domicile, etc., under know-your-customer (KYC) norms.
The Narendra Modi-led government has been pushing for adoption of technology across India under the label of Digital India. The government launched several technological services in July, one of which was e-signature.

eSign offers the functionality to authenticate signers and perform the digital signing of documents using Aadhaar eKYC service while submitting documents to agencies.



9190 - FeDigitalDividend: Digitization making income tax payers’ life easier - Financial Express


With the whole process of I-T return filing, to refunds, and even handling of tax notices now possible online, dealing with the Income Tax Department has become much easier now.
By: Santosh Tiwari | December 18, 2015 9:35 PM

Thanks to the rapid digitization of the whole process, the Income Tax Department has now launched the ‘e-Sahyog’ project, which does away with the need for the tax payer to physically appear before tax authorities unless there is a serious tax evasion case which requires physical scrutiny. (Thinkstock)

From a modest figure of just 3.62 lakh income tax (I-T) returns filed electronically in 2006-07, which was mere one per cent of the total returns filed that year, the number reached close to 3.42 crore in 2014-15 and it has surpassed 2.88 crore in the current financial year already (http://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/).

This clearly signals an end of the cumbersome paper returns era, and has not only helped the Income Tax Department in simplifying the administration of the return filing and assessment process, but has also made the life of the tax payers much easier as compared to what it was a few years back, when people dreaded the income tax notices.
Thanks to the rapid digitization of the whole process, the Income Tax Department has now launched the ‘e-Sahyog’ project, which does away with the need for the tax payer to physically appear before tax authorities unless there is a serious tax evasion case which requires physical scrutiny.

According to the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), “The objective of “e-Sahyog” is to provide an online mechanism to resolve mismatches in I-T returns of those assesses whose returns have been selected for scrutiny, without visiting the Income Tax Office. Under this initiative the Department will provide an end to end e-service using SMS, e-mails to inform the tax assesses of the mismatch”.

The tax payers simply need to visit the e-filing portal and log in with their user-ID and password to view mismatch related information and submit online response — the responses will be processed and if found satisfactory as per automated closure rules, the issue will be treated as closed, and the tax payers can check the updated status online.
While this move is slated to take the unnecessary harassments out of the scrutiny process, the extended use of digital platform to link Aadhaar with the I-T returns is helping the department expedite the refund process by quick and assured identification of the tax payers.
The newly introduced e-verification of I-T returns for the Assessment year 2015-16 has already resulted in linking of 3863223 Permanent Account Numbers (PAN) to Aadhaar and e-verification of 4677358 returns through bank accounts.
So, starting from the payment of taxes to filing of returns, exchange of assessment-related information between the tax payer and the taxman, even refunds or scrutiny, everything can be done online today.
Once there is an extensive linkage of PAN to Aadhaar going forward, the need for any physical interface between the tax payers and the Income Tax Department will completely vanish in a majority of the cases.
Clearly, digitization has brought in the changes in the tax payer services in the last few years that were perceived to be the difficult ones for a long time.
(Keep looking at this space for more examples of this kind on how digital solutions are transforming administration and governance in the country. If you have any of these and want to share it with us, mail it to feonline@expressindia.com).


First Published on December 18, 2015 9:20 pm

9189 - Over 95,000 MSMEs registered under Udyog Aadhaar in 3 months - Economic Times

PTI Dec 18, 2015, 08.52PM IST

NEW DELHI: As many as 95,650 MSMEs have been registered under the simplified Aadhaar-based registration system launched in September to promote ease of doing business, the Government said today.


"Within a short time of three months, 95,650 Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum (UAMs) have been filed in the country," the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises said.

The Ministry had come out with Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum which must be filled online by all micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), a move to simplify registration procedure for entrepreneurs and promote ease of doing business.
However, in exceptional cases where online filing is not possible, a hard copy of the form can be submitted to the District Industry Centre which shall file the Memorandum online on behalf of them, according to the notification issued by the MSME Ministry.

9188 - TPCC seeks all party meet over deleted voters issue - HANS India

December 18,2015, 02.18 AM  IST | | THE HANS INDIA

Hyderabad:  The Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) on Thursday demanded an all-party meeting over the issue of deletion of votes under Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits. It requested the Election Commission not to come up with election schedule before the issue was resolved.  

Speaking to media persons, party official spokespersons B Kamalakar Rao and G Niranjan said the GHMC officials were responsible for discrepancies in the voter list. 

They not only ignored the norms, but also undermined the declarations of apex court while enlisting the number of voters under GHMC limits.  They alleged that the Corporation’s officials, who have come up with the idea of linking the EPIC (Electors’ Photo Identity Card) with that of Aadhaar Card, had completely ignored the Supreme Court’s declaration that linking of both was not a mandatory exercise.

They pointed out that in September the GHMC officials have removed 89,000 voters as ‘duplicate’ based on Aadhaar card. Later, more than 6 lakh voters were removed and now they have come up with new figure of 7.9 voters as duplicate. 






9187 - Government rolls back order on physical registration of leave and licence agreements -dna


Date published: Friday, 18 December 2015 - 7:40am IST | Agency: dna

Senior officials said from Tuesday onwards, they had decided to withdraw the decision in three of the four offices, namely at Kurla, Andheri and Borivli, where manual registration will take place again.

Over two months after it decided to stop physical registration of leave and licence agreements in some sub-registrar offices in Mumbai, the state has decided to roll back the order.

On October 7, the department of registration and stamps had decided that four sub-registrar offices — one each in the island city, Andheri, Borivli and Kurla — would be off limits for leave and licence registration. This was meant to reduce footfalls in these offices as these agreements form a bulk of the registration burden and give a boost to e-registration at empanelled service providers.

Senior officials said from Tuesday onwards, they had decided to withdraw the decision in three of the four offices, namely at Kurla, Andheri and Borivli, where manual registration will take place again.

"This is being done in view of the high registrations which happen in December. We had decided to stop physical registration of leave and licence documents at the Andheri-I, Kurla-I, Borivli-I and Mumbai city-I offices, but are withdrawing it for the time being in view of public convenience," an official said.

Mumbai has 25 registration offices including five in the city, six at Andheri, five at Kurla and nine at Borivli. Of these, leave and licence registrations have been stopped at one office in each location. This was a precursor to gradually ensure that all leave and licence documents were e-registered.
However, this was not being done "openly" due to the Supreme Court's judgment which said that the Aadhaar card will not be mandatory but can be used optionally to avail various welfare schemes.
Officials say that this Aadhaar-based e-registration, which will serve as an alternative to the cumbersome and time-consuming physical registration process, will help people file documents at their convenience, do away with the necessity of coming to government offices and being fleeced by agents and lawyers charging hefty fees. However, this may inconvenience people who do not hold Aadhaar cards or are unaware about the facility.
This reduction in footfalls would also enable the department to undertake back-end work on recovering stamp duty on around 50,000 documents in Mumbai (of a total 1.25 lakh in Maharashtra) pending for registration.
This e-registration will take place through authorised service providers (ASPs) — Mumbai has 71 now with plans to scale it up gradually to 200 by March — and also through the state government's MahaOnline portal. These service providers will charge Rs700 for these services (of which Rs150 will be paid to the department) and an extra Rs300 for home visits.
For e-registration, the parties to the document and their identifiers need to be Aadhaar card holders.
Officials say this will also prevent agents and lawyers from charging hefty amounts to people for drafting these agreements. The department had uploaded a draft document which would do away with such intermediaries.
"We have set ourselves a target to ensure that at least 50% of leave and licence documents are registered through the e-registration route by March. So, people who come to our offices for registering other documents will get good service while those registering leave and licence documents will be able to do so at their convenience," the official said.
Of the around 3 lakh leave and licence documents registered across Maharashtra, around 2.5 lakh are in Mumbai.
The department is also looking at allowing a non-Aadhar linked
e-KYC based authentication system to push e-registration of documents. This system, which will cover people who have registered their biometrics for various transactions at the sub-registrar offices since 2012, will ensure that more citizens can register their documents electronically.
Today, e-registration accounts for just around 10.09% of leave and licence documents registered. Apart from leave and licence documents, people can also register first sale of flats by developers and Mhada allotment letters from the Konkan Board using the facility. People with the necessary software and hardware can do so from the comfort of their home.

9186 - Camp to issue Aadhaar cards - The Hindu

NAMAKKAL, December 18, 2015
Updated: December 18, 2015 05:33 IST

  • STAFF REPORTER
With 12 per cent of the people yet to enrol themselves for the Aadhaar card, the district administration has said that biometric capturing would be done at 44 places in the district.
Collector V. Dakshinamoorthy said that of the total 17,26,601 people in the district, enrolment of biometric details have been completed for 15,13,772 which is 88 per cent of the total population.

As many as 2, 12,829 people were yet to enrol their biometric details that have to be completed by end of December.
Enrolling of biometric details was being carried in taluk offices in Namakkal, Rasipuram, Kolli Hills, Tiruchengode, Sendamangalam and Paramathi Velur. Also, the process was carried out in municipal offices in Namakkal, Rasipuram, Tiruchengode, Komarapalayam, Pallipalayam and at permanent centre on collectorate premises.
The facility is available at 32 centres across the district and special camp is being held from December 17 for enrolment.
Hence, people in respective areas can approach these centres with the acknowledgement form of National Population Register (NPR) and enrol themselves. People who do not have the form can approach these centres with family card, electors’ identity card or driving licence.
The forms are available at free of cost in all revenue divisional offices, municipalities and taluk offices, he added. Also, beneficiaries of old age pension scheme who did not have Aadhaar card can participate in the camp.
Any person who is over five years can enrol for Aadhaar card, he added.

As many as 2, 12,829 people were yet to enrol
their biometric details




9185 - Former Aadhaar Chairman says India will experience banking transformation - Biometric Update



December 17, 2015 - 
Nandan Nilekani, former chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the government agency in charge of Aadhaar, recently gave an interview where he claimed that India is now on the cusp of transformation in banking and payments due to the expansion of the biometric database.
Aadhaar, recognized as the world’s largest universal Civil ID program and biometric database, is used by the Indian government to provide social services. To date, Aadhaar has issued over 900 million Aadhaar numbers, and has enrolled approximately 850 million people, with a goal of ultimately enrolling one billion people.
The database is actively used for monitor school attendance, issue natural gas subsidies to India’s rural poor, and to send wages directly to people’s bank accounts. The Indian government spends US$50 billion on direct subsidies, such food coupons for rice and cooking gas, every year.
The Aadhaar system, a landmark legacy project of India’s previous Congress Party government, also provides identification to people who do not have birth certificates. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Indian government is now seeking to massively expand the program. In its first budget, the government allocated US$340 million to speed the Aadhaar registration process. The new government’s objective is now to enroll 100 million more residents with Aadhaar in an effort to expand social programs offered through the service.
Nilekani noted in the interview: “Aadhaar has really survived and flourished despite political changes. When I stepped down as chairman in March 2014, we kept a commitment that we’ll issue 600 million Aadhaars and we kept our commitment. The new government has embraced Aadhaar. Prime Minister Narendra Modi reviews it every month in meetings, and now it has crossed 930 million. The Supreme Court has not put any restriction on enrolment, so that will continue and will hit a billion soon.”
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With wider enrollment, Nilekani predicts that Aadhaar will become a platform for financial transactions since Modi’s government has proposed use of Aadhaar to issue bank accounts to all Indian households. In the interview, he describes the launch of a new private bank, that uses Aadhaar authentication for its state-of-the-art micro ATM, allowing its customers to withdraw money. He notes: “The device was made by a private company, the user was a private bank, and the data verification was Aadhaar’s.” Nilekani said in the interview that these interrelationships were made possible because of the partnership between UIDAI and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which came into existence during his tenure. The NPCI provides an umbrella platform for all retail payment settlement in India.

Nilekani also said in the interview he was excited about the entrepreneurial opportunities that Aadhaar has created. He noted: “Just like Internet and GPS, where government-related infrastructure ultimately led to the Facebooks and Googles of the world, Aadhaar will lead to a huge number of start-ups in the next 10 years and many of them will become very large.” In the interview, he pointed out that financiers have begun to talk about creating Aadhaar-specific funds.

9184 - Why letters take a month to arrive in nine villages - TNN


Arpita Charabarty | TNN | Dec 16, 2015, 10.28 PM IST

ALMORA: Nine villages in Pithoragarh district, with a total population of about 2,200, have a unique problem - they are geographically in Pithoragarh but the post office that caters to them is in Almora district. So letters sent from within Pithoragarh must first go to Almora and then return to Pithoragarh! While a letter from neighbouring Almora might arrive in about 10 days, letters from within Pithoragarh take about a month to reach the addressee.

Mohan Chandra Joshi, a resident of Pithoragarh's Sera Urf Baroli village, says any letter he sends to members of his family in other parts of the district takes a month to reach. Joshi's village is in Gangolihaat block, Pithoragarh. The post office (PO) that caters to the village is in Bhasiacchana, Almora.

Separated by the Saryu River, about 2,200 residents of these nine villages have got accustomed to being extraordinarily patient with the department of posts. The anger, however, surges when applicants miss out on job interviews.

Joshi, the gram Pradhan of his village, said numerous complaints have been made to the superintendent of the Pithoragarh general post office, but to no avail.

"A registered letter takes at least 10 days to reach. When our Aadhaar cards were made, our postal address on the cards came incorrectly as PO, Bhasiachanna. Then it was corrected and sent to Ganai PO in Pithoragarh. However, no postman comes to deliver letters from Ganai. As a result, many residents of our village have not yet received the cards," he said.

The villages are all about 60 km from Almora and 130 km from Pithoragarh town. The other affected villages are Naili, Bhanoli Sera, Basera, Chaunapautal, Sartola and Niuliya Sera in Seraghat region. 

Villagers say they have appealed to Almora MP Ajay Tamta too to resolve this matter. "He pursued the matter and asked the superintendent of Pithoragarh to solve it. A survey was conducted by Berinag post office some months back, but there has been no update since," says Joshi.




Narayan Singh Duwal, gram pradhan of Sartola village, however, said no survey was conducted in his village. "We heard that some postmen had come to other villages to conduct a survey. But no one came to our village for a survey." Duwal said that residents of Sartola often have to travel to Ganai PO to collect their Aadhaar cards since no postman ever came to their village.



Superintendent of Almora GPO SK Kandwal told TOI that he had recently taken up charge of Pithoragarh GPO and was still to apprise himself of matters there. "We haven't received any survey report. We will be able to comment only when we receive it," he said.

9183 - 60 Out of 120 'Smokeless' Villages Are in Karnataka: IOC - New Indian Express

By Express News Service
Published: 17th December 2015 04:42 AM

BENGALURU:  Indian Oil Corporation on Wednesday declared 60 villages in the state as ‘smokeless’ with 100 per cent LPG penetration.

Panchayat Development Officers, who declared their villages as ‘smokeless village’, handed over a symbolic certificate to S Varadachari, General Manager, in-charge, Karnataka, Indian Oil.
“Indian Oil is committed to improving lives of people in the communities that it operates in,” Varadachari told reporters.
According to an officer, out of 120 villages in the country that are declared smokeless by the corporation, 60 are in Karnataka and they have set a target of 250 smokeless villages in the state by the end of the current financial year.

Indrajit Bose, ED (CC & Branding), said, “In India, over four million people die prematurely from illness attributable to household air pollution from cooking with solid fuels. Indoor air pollution is a major health hazard in our country... This mission aims to address this health need of our country,” he said.
The initiative has a double benefit, wherein the villagers would now be bank account holders and their LPG subsidy would go to their bank accounts, in addition to improving their health, said Abhijit Dey, DGM (LPG), Karnataka. Vychakurahalli in Gauribidanur taluk, Chikballapur district, about 77 km from Bengaluru, was the first village that was chosen under the project.

Over 3.68 Lakh  Give Up LPG Subsidy
Across Karnataka, 3,68,544 consumers have given up LPG subsidy as on Monday. Out of that, 1,73,115 are Indane customers.
The total LPG customer population in Karnataka is 114.45 lakhs as of October 1 this year and 6.29 lakh connections have been released so far during 2015-16.

Consumers joining the Direct Benefit Transfer of LPG (DBTL) scheme PAHAL will have to either link their Aadhaar number to their bank account and their LPG consumer or if they do not possess Aadhaar number, they will have to link their bank account directly with their 17 digit LPG number. Once a consumer joins the scheme, he will get the cylinders at market price and will receive LPG subsidy directly in his bank account.

9182 - Govt releases Rs 97 crore for rain relief - TNN

TNN | Dec 17, 2015, 11.54 AM IST

PUDUCHERRY: The Puducherry government has released 97 crore to the State Bank of India on December 16 to provide rain relief aid of Rs 4,000 per ration card holder covering 2.42 lakh cardholders.

The first phase covered card holders who have already linked their Aadhaar number with bank accounts and ration cards. 

The government will credit relief assistance to card holders, who have furnished their bank account number with IFSC number to the department of civil supplies and consumer affairs on December 17 and 18.

The beneficiaries can check the particulars of the distribution of relief assistance by visiting the website of the department (http://dcsca.puducherry.gov.in).

They can also view the particulars of their accounts by using their ration card number in the department's website. The card holders, who have not submitted their Aadhaar / bank account details earlier, can approach the department along with required copy of documents to link the vital documents with their ration cards, said P Priytarshny.

9181 - Rain Relief of Rs 4000 for All Ration Card Holders in UT - Indian Express

By Express News Service
Published: 17th December 2015 03:59 AM

PUDUCHERRY: The Puducherry government began crediting the rain relief assistance of Rs 4,000 in the bank accounts of affected families in Puducherry and Karaikal region of the Union Territory affected by the recent floods from Wednesday. The process is set to be completed by Friday. those ration card holders
As per the announcement made by  Chief Minister N Rangasamy, the first instance Rs 97,13,92,000 has been released to the State Bank of India (SBI) for making payments to 2,42,848 ration card holders, who have already linked their Aadhaar to their ration cards and bank accounts, said a release from the Director of Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs P Priyatarshny.
The beneficiaries can check the particulars in the website of the Department of Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs (http ://dcsca.puducherry.gov.in). By entering the ration card number, the beneficiary can check the status of the receipt of the assistance. The card holders who have not submitted their Aadhaar and bank account details earlier, will have to approach the Civil supplies department along with required copy of documents for making necessary entries in this regard to avail the rain relief assistance.
Meanwhile, the distribution of free mixies and grinders to all ration card holders would be taken up constituency-wise for which the administration will set up four to five centres in each constituency, said the CM.

CM added that the Puducherry administration has taken a decision to provide an assistance of Rs 4000 to the construction workers.

9180 - Aadhaar: irregularity alleged - The Hindu

SALEM, December 17, 2015

Aadhaar: irregularity alleged

  • STAFF REPORTER
Residents protesting against the delay in Aadhaar enrolment at Hasthampatti Zonal office in Salem on Wednesday.

Alleging irregularities in distribution of tokens for Aadhaar enrolment, residents staged a protest in Hasthampatti Zonal office here on Wednesday.

They said that since biometric capturing can be done only for 50 persons, they were waiting from 7 am to receive the tokens. However, corporation officials allegedly received money from many and did not give token to us, they said.

They also cause confusion by given the same number in tokens to many. Residents also said that tokens are also sold by the officials and they were forced to wait for long hours.

Condemning this, residents staged protest and the capturing of biometric details was halted. After officials held talks with the protestors, the camp continued.



9179 - India will see an innovation ecosystem around Aadhaar, says UID architect Nandan Nilekani



December 16, 2015:  

The year 2009 was witness to major transformations. Voice giving way to data, feature phones being replaced by smartphones, desktops yielding to mobile Internet and value-added services from telecom companies moving to applications. That’s the year Nandan Nilekani, Infosys co-founder, took charge of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). In a conversation with R. Sukumar, editor of Mint, at the Mint Cash to Digital summit held in New Delhi, the former UIDAI chairman talks about how Indians are on the cusp of a similar transformation in banking and payments. Edited excerpts:

Is Aadhaar a lynchpin or part of the lynchpin?
It is very important, it is the lynchpin.

There is a legal challenge surrounding it and if it goes what do you think can replace it?
It is not going anywhere. Aadhaar is here to stay.

What do you think is likely to happen?
On the political front, Aadhaar has really survived and flourished despite the political changes. When I stepped down as chairman in March 2014, we kept a commitment that we’ll issue 600 million Aadhaars and we kept our commitment. The new government has embraced Aadhaar. Prime Minister Narendra Modi reviews it every month in his Pragati meetings, and now it has crossed 930 million. The Supreme Court has not put any restriction on enrolment, so that will continue and will hit a billion soon.
The second thing is usage is going up. The Supreme Court had initially said it is only limited to LPG (liquefied petroleum gas), kerosene, PDS (public distribution system). But then there was an appeal. It was unusual as more than a dozen people made this appeal, state governments appealed, the regulator appealed. Then the Supreme Court further expanded it to include pensions, EPFO (Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation), NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) and Jan Dhan Yojana. So it is a question of 400 million families, someone will have EPFO, someone will have LPG. In that way everyone is linked to Aadhaar in some way or the other.
Also, if I use my Aadhaar for private use, court has nothing to do with it, and this way, private use will go up. Apart from some restrictions on government schemes using it to send money, everything else is doable these days. The argument in the Supreme Court is something different. The question is do I have a right to privacy? And I can’t answer that because that is talking about phone tapping, surveillance. Aadhaar is just a small part. Aadhaar is far more secure than anything else.
Today, iPhones are not safe at all. Whatever you search goes to Cupertino, someone in Cupertino knows what you are doing, Google knows what you are searching. So activists going for conference anywhere are giving away their biometrics but if you want to have a programme where a billion Indians’ privacy can be saved, we are all like no! So this argument related to Aadhaar is a case of massive hypocrisy. Aadhaar is here to stay, it is not going anywhere.

Let us move to the private usage that you mentioned. I remember soon after Aadhaar was launched, you had said in a conversation with me that I shouldn’t see it as a number, I should see it as a platform for applications. So anyone can use it to do pretty much anything. Do you see the new payment companies, e-wallets beginning to use this?
Yes, they will start with this. Take the example of IDFC Bank, it’s a new bank. The Prime Minister launched it in October and they did a live demo for him where they got their customers from Madhya Pradesh to withdraw money using IDFC Bank’s state-of-the-art micro ATM using Aadhaar authentication. The device was made by a private company, the user was a private bank, and the data verification was Aadhaar’s.
Today there are many start-ups coming up that will use Aadhaar. So many people are talking about creating Aadhaar-specific funds. So you will have an innovation ecosystem around Aadhaar, just like you have for the Internet or GPS. Just like Internet and GPS, where government-related infrastructure ultimately led to the Facebooks and Googles of the world, Aadhaar will lead to a huge number of start-ups in the next 10 years and many of them will become very large.

Coming to the slide that showed the India stack. Obviously not all of this has been orchestrated. National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) came into being. In some ways it is providential.
The partnership between NPCI and UIDAI is one of the great success stories of collaboration in India. When I took charge in July 2009, I got a call from N.V. Nair saying we have created a company called NPCI and I asked him what it was all about. He said RBI shouldn’t be in the payment system, it should be the regulator. So they made NCPI, a non-profit section 25 company owned by banks. This company was made coincidentally at the time of Aadhaar. Then I got a call from deputy governor of RBI Usha Thorat saying UIDAI needs to be used in banks as well. Over the past 6 years there has been a fabulous partnership between UIDAI and NPCI. Creation of NPCI was our priority—to manage ATM and ACH (automated clearing house) transactions.

What do you see as a big challenge to this?
On the Aadhaar front, more clarity from the Supreme Court is required. Ideally the government should pass a law. We framed a law and now it is in Rajya Sabha for many years. It will be great if this government says let’s close that and pass the law. On the regulatory front, RBI, I think, has done a great job. Regulatory innovation is a brilliant case study on just payments because they started by first allowing Prepaid Payment Instrument Licenses. They gave it to many people and a lot of people started coming in. They soon became online wallets and that’s what led to the Paytms of the world.
So I think they created innovation in payments by bringing in new people into the game who are not the traditional guys and that is how prepaid instruments happen and then they legitimized it even further by giving them a bank licence. It is a brilliant game of calibrated innovation and competition in the payment sector.

What does this mean for the banks? A significant retail portion of their business is undergoing major churn, seeing a lot of new players coming in. I think from the customer point of view, interacting with these new players is going to be a lot easier than with banks. In this case, what happens to the banks?
This technology is open to everyone. Whatever I described is public information and it is for public utility, it is not owned by any company. What happened in the West, after building Internet and GPS, after 9/11, focus of the government shifted to terrorism, surveillance and they seeded a lot of it to the private markets. So today in the West, this stack doesn’t exist completely and what exists is owned by the private companies, owned by the Googles, Facebooks of the world.
We are the only country which has a public stack which is built for any usage. So this stack can be used by a start-up to create the next-generation bank or it can be used by an existing bank. Then the question is how? So it’s a level playing field, it’s a public good both have access to, both have access to technology and capital, both have access to brain power, both have access to everything, now it is up to them. I am not sitting here saying who wins the game. It doesn’t matter to me but the game is changing for ever and it will change in five years. It’s up to the banks to say they will use this technology and push back the new competition.

From the regulatory point of view, there is the obvious use to monitor transactions, to make your tax maintenance network better. Is that right?
No, I think that is going to need laws. For example, there are already laws that require you to report high value transactions to the regulator. So that’s a different thing but obviously digitization is going to help. A proper legal system will help to reduce black money but I think the argument is that we need to attract people into the digital economy. In other words, if I have a digital record of my payments, it will help me to get a loan.
So the whole idea is that instead of going to a chit fund or a money lender, if I can get a loan at the same efficiency and much lower cost on my phone, that is good enough reason for me to be in the payments system. So we have to make it attractive for people. Credit is the killer app of digitization.

This article was first published on Livemint.com

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

9178 - National Census Details to be Updated This Month - New Indian Express

By Express News Service
Published: 16th December 2015 02:35 AM

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: This month, census officials will visit your home for collecting data for updating the National Population Register (NPR). The district administration on Tuesday urged the public to co-operate with the officials for making the exercise a success.

All residents have been asked to verify the documents with the officials with regard to data on members of the family, details of people who have died and new members. The public have also been requested to provide details like Aadhaar and  mobile phone numbers, ration card details to the officials. Of the two components under the NPR, demographic data was collected from households across the country in 2010.

Getting enrolled in the NPR is mandatory under the Citizenship Act. But few people are aware of this aspect of NPR which is prepared at village, sub-district, district, state and national level under provisions of the Citizenship Act 1955 and the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003. 


The NPR project targets a ‘comprehensive database’ of all usual residents in the country. A usual resident is defined as someone ‘ who has resided in a local area for the past six months or more or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next six months or more’.

9177 - New PAN mandate another step towards creating an audit trail - Live Mint

Last Modified: Thu, Dec 17 2015. 01 52 AM IST


While mandatory quoting of PAN will profile all transactions, linking PAN with Aadhaar will expose instances where one person uses multiple PANs

Remya Nair

The tax department on Tuesday said quoting PAN will be mandatory for all transactions above Rs2 lakh irrespective of the mode of payment. Photo: iStockphoto

New Delhi: Those who want to keep high-value transactions under the radar will soon have few places to hide.

Mandating permanent account number (PAN) for all transactions above Rs. 2 lakh, linking PAN with Aadhaar, and the introduction of a goods and services tax (GST) are expected to together create an audit trail of every high-value transaction conducted by an individual.

While mandatory quoting of PAN will profile all transactions, linking PAN with Aadhaar will expose instances where one person uses multiple PANs. With GST also envisaged as an online system where all invoices will be uploaded, various tax agencies will be to get all details of sales, purchases, income and taxes paid by one individual.

On Tuesday, the tax department said quoting PAN will be mandatory for all transactions above Rs.2 lakh irrespective of the mode of payment. It also stipulated that cash payments of hotel bills exceeding Rs.50,000 and purchase of cash/prepaid instruments aggregating to more than Rs.50,000 a year will have to quote PAN as part of its crackdown on cash transactions where there is no audit trail.

This is in line with the series of steps taken by the tax department over the last couple of years to check black money and tax evasion. The income tax department has launched a nationwide PAN campaign to get more people to apply for PAN.
It has also started the process of seeding Aadhaar with PAN number to weed out multiple PANs. The government had also initiated a 360-degree profiling of taxpayers by matching their direct and indirect tax payments to check for tax evasion.
It also started tracking high-value transactions like credit card payments, cash deposits in banks, purchase of tax-saving instruments using PAN and checking if these individuals were filing tax returns every year.

The government is hoping that all these steps will help in checking black money, especially domestically. It has already enacted the Black Money (Undisclosed foreign income and assets) and Imposition of Tax act to look into unaccounted income stashed in overseas bank accounts. It has also introduced the Benami Transactions (Amendment) Bill 2015 to check domestic black money.



9176 - Maharashtra government to join Centre's biometric-based pension scheme -dna

Wednesday, 16 December 2015 - 7:20am IST | Agency: dna | 

The Maharashtra government has around 6 lakh pensioners in addition to around 2 lakh pensioners of various zilla parishads. They have to provide life certificates between November 1 and 30.

In a major relief for pensioners and their families, the Maharashtra government has decided to participate in the Centre's Jeevan Pramaan scheme, which enables the beneficiaries to submit digitised, biometric life certificates.
Finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar recently granted his approval for joining the scheme, which will make things easier for pensioners by reducing modalities in the grant of pension. They have to provide life certificates to pension disbursing agencies, such as banks, on an annual basis, and have to present themselves personally before the bank officials or get the certificate issued by the department where they had served and deliver it to the bank. This causes inconvenience to pensioners, especially to those who are unwell, confined or have settled elsewhere.

The Maharashtra government has around 6 lakh pensioners in addition to around 2 lakh pensioners of various zilla parishads. They have to provide life certificates between November 1 and 30.

The biometric-based Jeevan Pramaan digital life certificate scheme will make it easier for pensioners to get these certificates. The Aadhaar-linked system will enable pensioners to scan their iris or fingerprints to certify that they are alive and cut down on unnecessary procedures.

"The in-principle approval has been granted. Now the National Informatics Centre (NIC) will decide on the modalities and the procedure to grant these digital life certificates and will work on the back-end software too," said a senior finance department official. The life certificates can also be electronically delivered to the pension disbursing agency without any human intervention, he added.

He said the biometric scanning facilities could be made available in banks, government offices, citizen service centres (CSCs) and Sangram centres, which have been set up in gram panchayats, dedicated Jeevan Pramaan centres or even from the comfort of ones' home in case the pensioner had the necessary hardware and software. For this, the pensioners will voluntarily have to seed their Aadhaar numbers with their pension and bank database and provide their biometric details. The official added the facility was likely to be activated in the coming year.

9175 - Aadhaar is here to stay: Nandan Nilekani - Live Mint

Last Modified: Wed, Dec 16 2015. 12 05 PM IST


The former UIDAI chairman talks about how Indians are on the cusp of a similar transformation in banking and payments

Srishta Gupta


Nandan Nilekani. Photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint

New Delhi: The year 2009 was witness to major transformations. Voice giving way to data, feature phones being replaced by smartphones, desktops yielding to mobile Internet and value-added services from telecom companies moving to applications. That’s the year Nandan Nilekani, Infosys co-founder, took charge of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). In a conversation with R. Sukumar, editor of Mint, at the Mint Cash to Digital summit held in New Delhi, the former UIDAI chairman talks about how Indians are on the cusp of a similar transformation in banking and payments. Edited excerpts:

Is Aadhaar a lynchpin or part of the lynchpin?
It is very important, it is the lynchpin.

There is a legal challenge surrounding it and if it goes what do you think can replace it?

It is not going anywhere. Aadhaar is here to stay.

What do you think is likely to happen?
On the political front, Aadhaar has really survived and flourished despite the political changes. When I stepped down as chairman in March 2014, we kept a commitment that we’ll issue 600 million Aadhaars and we kept our commitment. The new government has embraced Aadhaar. Prime Minister Narendra Modi reviews it every month in his Pragati meetings, and now it has crossed 930 million. The Supreme Court has not put any restriction on enrolment, so that will continue and will hit a billion soon.

The second thing is usage is going up. The Supreme Court had initially said it is only limited to LPG (liquefied petroleum gas), kerosene, PDS (public distribution system). But then there was an appeal. It was unusual as more than a dozen people made this appeal, state governments appealed, the regulator appealed. Then the Supreme Court further expanded it to include pensions, EPFO (Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation), NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) and Jan Dhan Yojana. So it is a question of 400 million families, someone will have EPFO, someone will have LPG. In that way everyone is linked to Aadhaar in some way or the other.

Also, if I use my Aadhaar for private use, court has nothing to do with it, and this way, private use will go up. Apart from some restrictions on government schemes using it to send money, everything else is doable these days. The argument in the Supreme Court is something different. The question is do I have a right to privacy? And I can’t answer that because that is talking about phone tapping, surveillance. Aadhaar is just a small part. Aadhaar is far more secure than anything else.

Today, iPhones are not safe at all. Whatever you search goes to Cupertino, someone in Cupertino knows what you are doing, Google knows what you are searching. So activists going for conference anywhere are giving away their biometrics but if you want to have a programme where a billion Indians’ privacy can be saved, we are all like no! So this argument related to Aadhaar is a case of massive hypocrisy. Aadhaar is here to stay, it is not going anywhere.

Let us move to the private usage that you mentioned. I remember soon after Aadhaar was launched, you had said in a conversation with me that I shouldn’t see it as a number, I should see it as a platform for applications. So anyone can use it to do pretty much anything. Do you see the new payment companies, e-wallets beginning to use this?

Yes, they will start with this. Take the example of IDFC Bank, it’s a new bank. The Prime Minister launched it in October and they did a live demo for him where they got their customers from Madhya Pradesh to withdraw money using IDFC Bank’s state-of-the-art micro ATM using Aadhaar authentication. The device was made by a private company, the user was a private bank, and the data verification was Aadhaar’s.

Today there are many start-ups coming up that will use Aadhaar. So many people are talking about creating Aadhaar-specific funds. So you will have an innovation ecosystem around Aadhaar, just like you have for the Internet or GPS. Just like Internet and GPS, where government-related infrastructure ultimately led to the Facebooks and Googles of the world, Aadhaar will lead to a huge number of start-ups in the next 10 years and many of them will become very large.

Coming to the slide that showed the India stack. Obviously not all of this has been orchestrated. National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) came into being. In some ways it is providential.

The partnership between NPCI and UIDAI is one of the great success stories of collaboration in India. When I took charge in July 2009, I got a call from N.V. Nair saying we have created a company called NPCI and I asked him what it was all about. He said RBI shouldn’t be in the payment system, it should be the regulator. So they made NCPI, a non-profit section 25 company owned by banks. This company was made coincidentally at the time of Aadhaar. Then I got a call from deputy governor of RBI Usha Thorat saying UIDAI needs to be used in banks as well. Over the past 6 years there has been a fabulous partnership between UIDAI and NPCI. Creation of NPCI was our priority—to manage ATM and ACH (automated clearing house) transactions.

What do you see as a big challenge to this?
On the Aadhaar front, more clarity from the Supreme Court is required. Ideally the government should pass a law. We framed a law and now it is in Rajya Sabha for many years. It will be great if this government says let’s close that and pass the law. On the regulatory front, RBI, I think, has done a great job. Regulatory innovation is a brilliant case study on just payments because they started by first allowing Prepaid Payment Instrument Licenses. They gave it to many people and a lot of people started coming in. They soon became online wallets and that’s what led to the Paytms of the world.

So I think they created innovation in payments by bringing in new people into the game who are not the traditional guys and that is how prepaid instruments happen and then they legitimized it even further by giving them a bank licence. It is a brilliant game of calibrated innovation and competition in the payment sector.

What does this mean for the banks? A significant retail portion of their business is undergoing major churn, seeing a lot of new players coming in. I think from the customer point of view, interacting with these new players is going to be a lot easier than with banks. In this case, what happens to the banks?
This technology is open to everyone. Whatever I described is public information and it is for public utility, it is not owned by any company. What happened in the West, after building Internet and GPS, after 9/11, focus of the government shifted to terrorism, surveillance and they seeded a lot of it to the private markets. So today in the West, this stack doesn’t exist completely and what exists is owned by the private companies, owned by the Googles, Facebooks of the world.

We are the only country which has a public stack which is built for any usage. So this stack can be used by a start-up to create the next-generation bank or it can be used by an existing bank. Then the question is how? So it’s a level playing field, it’s a public good both have access to, both have access to technology and capital, both have access to brain power, both have access to everything, now it is up to them. I am not sitting here saying who wins the game. It doesn’t matter to me but the game is changing for ever and it will change in five years. It’s up to the banks to say they will use this technology and push back the new competition.

From the regulatory point of view, there is the obvious use to monitor transactions, to make your tax maintenance network better. Is that right?
No, I think that is going to need laws. For example, there are already laws that require you to report high value transactions to the regulator. So that’s a different thing but obviously digitization is going to help. A proper legal system will help to reduce black money but I think the argument is that we need to attract people into the digital economy. In other words, if I have a digital record of my payments, it will help me to get a loan.
So the whole idea is that instead of going to a chit fund or a money lender, if I can get a loan at the same efficiency and much lower cost on my phone, that is good enough reason for me to be in the payments system. So we have to make it attractive for people. Credit is the killer app of digitization.


9174 - Modi’s Challenge: He Has To Begin Selling JAM As Bread Plus Freedom - Swarajya


Jagannathan is Editorial Director, Swarajya. He tweets at @TheJaggi.


What Manmohan Singh failed to do in 1991-96 and 2004-14, Modi should do in 2014-19. If he only spends his remaining tenure making JAM work, he would be seen as a truly reformist prime minister.


The Modi government’s inexplicable delay in extending the ambit of subsidy delivery reforms after the early success of the LPG direct benefits transfer (DBT) scheme and the “Give it up” campaigns raises questions about how serious it is about using the JAM trinity (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-mobile), its towering achievement in its five-year term.

DBT for cooking gas became the universal norm on 1 April – and there are few murmurs against it – but as of mid-December we don’t hear too much about extending the DBT to more areas. There is, off course, talk of extending the DBT to kerosene and food, but caution is the watchword.

Of course, we need not assume the government has already got cold feet, but in February this year the government said it was planning to extend the scheme to fertiliser subsidies, and we haven’t seen much progress since then; and in July it said it was rolling out pilots for food subsidy in three Union territories – Puducherry, Chandigarh and Dadra & Nagar Haveli. The pilot projects are too small and the opposition is building up (mainly from ration shops). If DBT is not quickly scaled up before the opposition to it gathers more steam, it will be a much-watered down achievement for Modi.

The need for speed is obvious. One-and-a-half years of the NDA government are over, and it effectively has two-and-a-half more years to deliver results on the ground, assuming, safely, that no government will launch any politically difficult ideas in the last year of its tenure. And subsidy reform in the vital areas of food, fuel and fertiliser will probably take all of two years to roll out fully, given the need to improve financial literacy, fight the legal hurdles to the spread of Aadhaar, and iron out the kinks in mobile banking using payment banks.

It is worth recalling here the JAM is hardly an NDA invention. The UPA government was the original author of the idea of financial inclusion, the rapid expansion of mobile ownership (ironically enabled by A Raja’s corruption, which kept mobile costs ultra-low) and the Aadhaar unique ID (still barely legal, given the lack of a law to give it teeth). In fact, the Congress had even coined a slogan – Aapka paisa, aapke haath – to sell the idea of DBT two years before the 2014 elections. But it chickened out despite the obvious attractiveness of the scheme.

We can only speculate on why the Congress dumped its own schemes when Narendra Modi has been able to build on them successfully.

First, the DBT scheme hits directly at corruption by eliminating middlemen and fixers from the delivery of subsidies. The Congress, which clearly has had a record of long-term corruption, must have balked at the possibility that its power base was about to be up-ended.

Second, the early success of the kerosene DBT scheme in Rajasthan – where kerosene demand fell dramatically during the pilot project – may have scared the daylights out of vested interests, and this fact would have got the politicians worried. 

According to this Hindu Business Line report, in one Alwar block, kerosene demand dropped by nearly 70-80 percent when the DBT was introduced, indicating the level of possible misallocation that may have been happening when kerosene was sold through fair-price shops at a subsidised price.

Third, despite tall talk about financially empowering the poor, a vital component in a scheme where the subsidy is to be directly credited to a beneficiary’s account, the fact is the Congress was unimaginative in its efforts to ensure financial inclusion. In contrast, consider how fast the Modi government made the Jan Dhan scheme universal – at last count, there were nearly 20 crore Jan Dhan accounts, enough to cover all households barring those living in the remotest parts of the country, and possibly in areas with poor law and order conditions (like Naxal-infested areas).

Fourth, Aadhaar was also facing a legal challenge around 2013, but that should have been a reason to speed it up and make it stick while moving the court for concessions on its rollout – as the Modi government has done. It is difficult to see how the courts could have annulled a scheme meant to help the poor, but the UPA was particularly careless about passing a law to make Aadhaar legally sound.

Taken together, one would think that subsidy reform was slowed down purely for political reasons. The Congress-led UPA simply did not have the stomach for it.
The big question is: will Modi show the gumption that Sonia Gandhi lacked?

Governments tend to lose their nerve when they are politically diffident, and the stunning defeat of the BJP in Delhi and Bihar could not have done anything to restore the Modi government’s confidence.

However, if we accept the reality that fortune favours the brave, this is no time for the Modi government to become politically risk-averse. On the contrary, it should see that there is nothing more to be lost after the Bihar and Delhi debacles. Its best bet is to focus on delivering subsidy reforms quickly in the hope that, at some point before 2019, its benefits will be obvious to the poor.

Time is running out for one simple reason: given the belligerence of the Congress and its ability to block reforms legislation endlessly in the Rajya Sabha, and given the reality that many state elections are due in 2016 and 2017 (UP is the big one), delivery on “achche din” has to come in areas where the opposition cannot block. This means using the Union budget creatively (money bills cannot be blocked by the upper house), and focusing on areas directly controlled by the centre – the financial system (Jan Dhan), mobile networks and Aadhaar (through a babu-driven process, and assuming the Supreme Court does not finally stymie it).

The problem with Indian politicians is that they think “free” is the only saleable proposition when it comes to wooing voters. “Freedom” is not something they think about.

However, it is time for Modi to explain a new equation that the poor are not beggars, and that “free” comes with a price, and that price is freedom and dignity – and access to subsidies. This, after all, was the logic of the “aapka paisa, aapke haath’ slogan. People know that subsidies intended for them don’t reach them – at least in full.

Modi should personally campaign for JAM and subsidy reform by explaining why it helps the poor more than cheap grain inefficiently supplied through ration shops.

#1: No standing in queues. The poor save time and hence money – as they can use the time to earn more from available work.
#2: The beneficiary of subsidy is converted to a consumer with buying power – the key to social respect. If earlier the poor had to kowtow to the whims of ration shopkeepers and put up with poor quality grain and adulterated kerosene, now they can buy whatever they want from whom they want. They can boycott the crooks. They are “free to choose.” This is empowering, not something politicians want. Once people are free to choose, they may well think politicians are not that vital for their well-being.
#3: Money in the bank can be used for anything. The poor can buy less kerosene and pay school fees for their kids; they do not have to buy something merely because it is cheap and subsidised.

The economic efficiency benefits are obviously enormous, but that is not what needs marketing. In an electoral democracy, what needs explaining is how the last man benefits from reforms.

Since the intention is not actually to cut subsidies but merely to avoid leakages, Modi should take courage in his hands and explain that the poor will not lose their subsidies, but will get choice on how to use them.

In other words, he can truthfully tell them that what is he offering them is not bread or freedom, but bread plus freedom. JAM equals bread plus freedom.

If Modi only spends his remaining tenure making JAM work, he would be seen as a truly reformist prime minister. And reforms will not anymore be seen as pro-rich. What Manmohan Singh failed to do in 1991-96 and 2004-14, Modi should do in 2014-19. He can be the man of destiny for pro-poor reforms.