10 OCT, 2011, 01.05AM IST, ET BUREAU
NEW DELHI: Nandan Nilekani has refused to join issue with mounting criticism directed at his UIDAI project from some official quarters, saying that some angst was inevitable in an exercise of such a transformational sweep.
The former Infosys boss and one of India's most feted private sector managers joined the government in 2009 as chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, a body tasked with giving every Indian resident a unique 12-digit Aadhaar number and whose work could in the future alter the way the state spends some Rs 300,000 crore ($60 billion) each year.
After a dream cast off, the project appears to have encountered choppy waters in recent weeks, with some of the authority's plans raising the hackles of the home and the finance ministries and most recently, the Planning Commission.
But Nilekani, who holds the rank of a cabinet minister and reports directly to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, made light of the seeming disagreements and said he had not seen any "evidence or indication" that the project was being sought to be derailed by vested interests.
UIDAI working within limits:
"This seems natural to me," Nilekani told ET. "When you are undertaking a project of such transformation, it obviously brings change that is viewed by different interests in different ways."
The finance ministry last month rejected the UIDAI's request for additional funds to capture biometrics of 1.2 billion residents through its registrars, citing duplication of expenditure. The home ministry has questioned the security of the biometrics of 100 million people the UIDAI has already captured.
The former Infosys boss and one of India's most feted private sector managers joined the government in 2009 as chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, a body tasked with giving every Indian resident a unique 12-digit Aadhaar number and whose work could in the future alter the way the state spends some Rs 300,000 crore ($60 billion) each year.
After a dream cast off, the project appears to have encountered choppy waters in recent weeks, with some of the authority's plans raising the hackles of the home and the finance ministries and most recently, the Planning Commission.
But Nilekani, who holds the rank of a cabinet minister and reports directly to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, made light of the seeming disagreements and said he had not seen any "evidence or indication" that the project was being sought to be derailed by vested interests.
UIDAI working within limits:
"This seems natural to me," Nilekani told ET. "When you are undertaking a project of such transformation, it obviously brings change that is viewed by different interests in different ways."
The finance ministry last month rejected the UIDAI's request for additional funds to capture biometrics of 1.2 billion residents through its registrars, citing duplication of expenditure. The home ministry has questioned the security of the biometrics of 100 million people the UIDAI has already captured.