January 21st 2011
On September 29 Our PM Manmohan Singh landed in Tembhli Villege Nandurbar district in Maharashtra with a 12 digit number to a new era. Ranjana Sadasiv Sonawane (782474317884) created a history by becoming the first person to get an unique identity number under the UPA govt’s ‘Adhar’ project. Her five year old son Hitesh also got a UID number. The PM declared that everyone will get this UID soon. This was a revolutionary step taken by our government. Definitely it is going to be very useful in this new technical world. Poor people in India don’t have any identity proof because of this shortcoming they couldn’t open bank accounts or get other benefits of government welfare programs and several times, these benefits are pocketed by others. Sonia Gandhi said “The goal of this project in not only development but inclusive growth.”
Brains behind the Project
A graduate from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay with a B. Tech. in electrical engineering batch 1978, after his graduation he joined Patni Computer Systems where N. R. Narayana Murty took his interview. After three years there was a dispute in company and Murty walked out of Patni. His entire division walked out with him and the defectors established a new company INFOSYS. Later on he became the CEO of INFOSYS in March 2002, taking over from Murty. In July 2009 he left INFOSYS to serve the chairperson of Unique Identification Authority of India after getting an invitation from our prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, in the rank of a cabinet minister.
An IAS officer Ram Sewak Sharma of Jharkhand Government cadre has been appointed as the Director General and Mission Director of the authority. He is a well-known person in the e-governance project in Jharkhand, he worked as an IT secretary and during his job period he has won a number of awards for best Information Technology Trends State in India.
Unique Identification Authority of India
Also known as UIDAI project is a part of planning commission of India under which government of India will provide unique ID number to all Indians but not smart cards. The authority would provide a database of residents containing very simple data in biometrics. It will create world’s largest biometric database covering around one billion people. It will be a multipurpose identity card which will help people in several ways like in poverty alleviation programs such as NREGA, addressing Illegal Immigration into India and terrorist threats is another goal of the program. They are actually planning to link voter ID, passports, ration cards, licenses, fishing permits and a few more alike things into one card. The Union Labor Ministry has offered its verified Employment Provident Fund (EPFO) database of 42 million citizens as the first database to be integrated into the unique ID system.
This project is known as AADHAR which means base or foundation.
They have planned to introduce a micro-payment system in order to make banking services easy for rural people. The idea is to appoint Business Correspondents for every Gram Panchayat and they will be selected among the people themselves they could be kirana shop owner or any reputed person fromthat area and they will be working like instant ATM’s.
Nandan Nilekani says, ”This device will be based on a mobile phone connection and would be made available at every BC. Customers would just have to get their identity authenticated and withdraw or put money into their bank accounts. This money will not come from the ATM, but from the cash drawer of the BC”
Critiques
The main critique is technical difficulty as in November 2009 WikiLeaks said that “The UID Database will be susceptible to attacks and leaks at various levels.” and a national database could allow police or intelligence groups to discriminate against people by caste, religion or birthplace.
Besides this Biometric verification is not 100% accurate. This technology is can’t distinguish between the upper skin of the finger and technically made dummy fingers of acrylic paint, silicon rubber etc and in this 21st century fingerprint can be altered very easily by paying a very few thousand bucks .
According to The Wall Street Journal, “Numerous social studies show that knowledge of these identifiers adversely impacts delivery of services such as education and health care to disadvantaged citizens.”
Except this there are people making statements about Article 21 of Indian Constitution and relating that with this project. A few more stating that it’s a gross violation of fundamental human rights and many more rumors are there including that NandanNilekani is misleading Indian government.
On the brighter side
Now the government is using technology to better our lives. It is very helpful in making the system transparent and ensures speedy recovery of resources to the needy without any malpractice. It is a boon for our people.
This project is not just for enabling the poor to access the government programs it will help them in so many ways and it is not just for villagers or poor people even urban educated persons will be getting profits from it. This way a ’ 12 digit no’ will be making the life of every Indian more lavish and beautiful.
-Article by Piyush Raj Verma from Dr. RML National Law University, Lucknow.
Brains behind the Project
A graduate from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay with a B. Tech. in electrical engineering batch 1978, after his graduation he joined Patni Computer Systems where N. R. Narayana Murty took his interview. After three years there was a dispute in company and Murty walked out of Patni. His entire division walked out with him and the defectors established a new company INFOSYS. Later on he became the CEO of INFOSYS in March 2002, taking over from Murty. In July 2009 he left INFOSYS to serve the chairperson of Unique Identification Authority of India after getting an invitation from our prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, in the rank of a cabinet minister.
An IAS officer Ram Sewak Sharma of Jharkhand Government cadre has been appointed as the Director General and Mission Director of the authority. He is a well-known person in the e-governance project in Jharkhand, he worked as an IT secretary and during his job period he has won a number of awards for best Information Technology Trends State in India.
Unique Identification Authority of India
Also known as UIDAI project is a part of planning commission of India under which government of India will provide unique ID number to all Indians but not smart cards. The authority would provide a database of residents containing very simple data in biometrics. It will create world’s largest biometric database covering around one billion people. It will be a multipurpose identity card which will help people in several ways like in poverty alleviation programs such as NREGA, addressing Illegal Immigration into India and terrorist threats is another goal of the program. They are actually planning to link voter ID, passports, ration cards, licenses, fishing permits and a few more alike things into one card. The Union Labor Ministry has offered its verified Employment Provident Fund (EPFO) database of 42 million citizens as the first database to be integrated into the unique ID system.
This project is known as AADHAR which means base or foundation.
They have planned to introduce a micro-payment system in order to make banking services easy for rural people. The idea is to appoint Business Correspondents for every Gram Panchayat and they will be selected among the people themselves they could be kirana shop owner or any reputed person fromthat area and they will be working like instant ATM’s.
Nandan Nilekani says, ”This device will be based on a mobile phone connection and would be made available at every BC. Customers would just have to get their identity authenticated and withdraw or put money into their bank accounts. This money will not come from the ATM, but from the cash drawer of the BC”
Critiques
The main critique is technical difficulty as in November 2009 WikiLeaks said that “The UID Database will be susceptible to attacks and leaks at various levels.” and a national database could allow police or intelligence groups to discriminate against people by caste, religion or birthplace.
Besides this Biometric verification is not 100% accurate. This technology is can’t distinguish between the upper skin of the finger and technically made dummy fingers of acrylic paint, silicon rubber etc and in this 21st century fingerprint can be altered very easily by paying a very few thousand bucks .
According to The Wall Street Journal, “Numerous social studies show that knowledge of these identifiers adversely impacts delivery of services such as education and health care to disadvantaged citizens.”
Except this there are people making statements about Article 21 of Indian Constitution and relating that with this project. A few more stating that it’s a gross violation of fundamental human rights and many more rumors are there including that NandanNilekani is misleading Indian government.
On the brighter side
Now the government is using technology to better our lives. It is very helpful in making the system transparent and ensures speedy recovery of resources to the needy without any malpractice. It is a boon for our people.
This project is not just for enabling the poor to access the government programs it will help them in so many ways and it is not just for villagers or poor people even urban educated persons will be getting profits from it. This way a ’ 12 digit no’ will be making the life of every Indian more lavish and beautiful.
-Article by Piyush Raj Verma from Dr. RML National Law University, Lucknow.
