Jul 12, 2010, 12.00am IST
The government's decision to slash the budget for the unique identification project by more than half is truly unfortunate. From the estimated Rs 7,000 crore, the Unique Identification Authority of India, headed by IT guru Nandan Nilekani, will now have only Rs 3,000 crore to work with. As a result, only 10 crore UID numbers will be issued instead of the 60 crore that was planned for the first phase of the project. This is a huge setback.
Once fully implemented, UID should facilitate a host of welfare policies by ensuring smooth delivery of the benefits of government schemes to the poor. For example, it can be mated with the PDS to ensure effective disbursement of cheap foodgrains. Or if PDS proves too inefficient, it can be bypassed by handing out food coupons directly to the needy. The effects of this would be truly transformative. Yet or perhaps precisely for that reason efforts are underway to stymie the project before it takes off.
Reportedly, the budget cut has been attributed to the government's growing spending in Maoist-affected areas as well as its reluctance to accept the UID's incentive scheme for registration. The two reasons are hardly logical. First, the government's welfare programmes in Naxal areas can be hugely bolstered by the implementation of UID. Second, the UID incentive scheme, which seeks to monetarily reward the applicant and the registrar even opening up a bank account for the former is a novel idea. Bank accounts would be less prone to corruption than cash handouts.
There is a clear tendency on the part of the bureaucracy to resist implementation of policies that aim at making governance more transparent and efficient. This is something we have already witnessed with the Right to Information Act. After repeated attempts to dilute the efficacy of the path-breaking legislation, government authorities today are hardly enthusiastic about disclosing information to RTI petitioners. According to the Planning Commission, for every Rs 4 spent on the PDS only Re 1 reaches the poor. This works out to an estimated loss of Rs 27,000 crore on just food subsidies annually, not to mention many other leakages. But the government would rather save Rs 4,000 crore on a project that would reap significant dividends in the long run and help cut down on cost elsewhere. This is penny wise, pound foolish. The UPA leadership must step in and ensure full resources and political backing for one of its most innovative projects.