Reetika Khera, Hindustan Times
New Delhi, August 30, 2010
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)’s ambitious plan of issuing a unique biometric-enabled number, innocuously called ‘aadhaar’, to every Indian resident has finally begun to generate a debate on citizen-State relations, privacy, financial implications, and operational practicalities.
What the debate has largely missed so far, however, is the credibility of the UIDAI’s claims in the field of social policy, particularly the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and Public Distribution System (PDS). Tall claims (“the project possesses the power to eliminate financial exclusion, enhance accessibility, and uplift living standards for the majority poor”) have been made. Scrutinising the UIDAI’s documents reveals their poor understanding of how PDS and NREGA leakages occur and little evidence of creative thinking on plugging them. Instead, one is treated to rhetorical statements peppered with the ‘Aadhaar-enabled’ buzzword.
In the days of cash payments of wages, it was quite easy to embezzle NREGA funds by inflating attendance records and pocketing the difference. In 2008, the government made it mandatory for all NREGA wages to be paid through banks and post offices. The introduction of payments through accounts has made corruption difficult, but three ways of siphoning off money remain — extortion, collusion and fraud. Extortion means that when ‘inflated’ wages are withdrawn by labourers from their account, the middleman turns extortionist and takes a share. Collusion occurs when the labourer and the middleman agree to share the inflated wages that are credited to the labourer’s account. Fraud means that middlemen open and operate accounts on behalf of labourers and pay them cash. Biometric-enabled UID to authenticate identity can only help to prevent ‘fraud’, but is of little use in preventing collusion or extortion.
Even on the specific issue of eliminating fraud, the UIDAI’s thinking is muddled. “Once each citizen in a job card needs to provide his UID before claiming employment, the potential for ghost or fictitious beneficiaries is eliminated.” Elimination of ghost beneficiaries would be an important contribution, but as the same sentence makes clear, it requires compulsory and universal enrolment. Yet, public statements convey that UID enrolment will be voluntary.
Nilekani speaks of “how having a UID can give automatic benefits” (Indian Express). In practice, there will be automatic exclusion as those who do not enrol will be turned away. We learnt this lesson the hard way in the transition to bank payments. Poorly-equipped and understaffed banks were expected to open millions of NREGA accounts overnight. Labourers began to be denied work — “no account, no work,” they were told. The UIDAI is also poorly informed. “In many areas the wages continue to be paid in the form of cash.” In fact, the transition to bank payments is largely complete (83 per cent NREGA job cardholders have an account). Tamil Nadu is the only ‘area’ where wages continue to be paid in cash (retained for the sake of speed).
Sometimes the UIDAI documents contain plain gibberish. Jumping on the social audits bandwagon, they say: “The village-level social audit committee can be selected after authentication with the UID database. The social audit reports filed by the village-level committees can be authenticated by the biometrics of the committee members and the social audit coordinator.”
Turning to the PDS, the most important contribution of the UID would be to eliminate duplicate cards. But what proportion of cards in circulation are duplicates? The little reliable data on this suggest it is not large: 2 per cent in Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh’s computerisation drive to issue hologram-enabled cards eliminated 8 per cent duplicates.
The UIDAI believes that “a key source of leakage identified in the PDS, is subsidised food drawn from the ration shop in the names of eligible families by someone else”. Again, a quick tutorial on PDS leakages might help. There are two major sources of leakage from the PDS: one, diversion of grain, en route to the village ration shop. Dealers then appear helpless saying that they have been issued less by the authorities. Two, dealers undersell (e.g., only 25kg out of the 35kg entitlement) and yet make people testify on official records that they got their full quota. When villagers are disempowered and forced to buy from the same dealer, they feel resigned to being cheated.
The UIDAI recommends that people be freed from the monopoly of dealers, i.e. if he is corrupt, they can go to another. (Finally a usable idea, but alas, an old one.) Conflating the UID with benefits, the UIDAI goes on to make a bogus claim of “portability of benefits” (at least four times in their paper). Portability of benefits requires grappling with operational issues that Aadhaar cannot solve.
Aadhaar is about “inclusivity, the purpose is a better quality of public service delivery, it’s about giving people, who have been denied identity, a chance” (Nilekani, Economic Times). Yet, the UIDAI states: “The NREGA programme can be used to enrol residents into the UID programme” and that the PDS “will provide the necessary impetus for penetration of UID”. If the idea is to use the existing NREGA and PDS database to enrol people, where does ‘inclusivity’ come in? Perhaps the UIDAI needs the PDS and NREGA databases more than these programmes need the UID.
If the UIDAI is serious, it must think about the difficult questions: what if the grain/wages are snatched away after authentication, or if tele-links or hand-held devices break down? What about the costs involved? Illegal fees are routinely charged for ration and job cards — what prevents this from happening while finger-printing? Most importantly, what will Aadhaar add to what can be achieved by computerisation of operations, a reliable MIS, and simpler ‘technologies’ for transparency (e.g., the information walls in Rajasthan)?
If the rhetoric on inclusivity is only a ‘PR’ exercise, what actually drives the UID project? As former Intelligence Bureau chief A.K. Doval candidly said in Tehelka, “It [UID] was intended to wash out the aliens and unauthorised people. But the focus appears to be shifting. Now, it is being projected as more development-oriented, lest it ruffle any feathers.”
Reetika Khera is a development economist at the Delhi School of Economics The views expressed by the author are personal
Why this Blog ? News articles in the Wide World of Web, quite often disappear with time, when they are relocated as archives with a different url. Archives in this blog serve as a library for those who are interested in doing Research on Aadhaar Related Topics. Articles are published with details of original publication date and the url.
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
