Subir Roy / New Delhi October 12, 2011, 0:02 IST
Both Nandan Nilekani and his well-wishers are today, two years after he set out on his unique identification (UID) journey, wiser if not a more disillusioned lot. Right at the outset he had acknowledged concerns over privacy issues, saying, “India does not really have a privacy law. So all this will act as an impetus to define the privacy framework for Indians.” That gaping hole is still staring us in the face but the UID project progresses and sticks to its schedule, thanks to Mr Nilekani’s managerial and institution-building capabilities. What do you say to those who are concerned with protecting civil liberties demanding that the project be halted until a privacy regime is in place.
UID was sold as a way to include (give an officially recognisable and verifiable identity) those who are outside the system. That would also include those who are not destitutes but have no address — the income earning pavement dweller in urban areas or the migrant construction labourer moving from site to site. “There are 75 million homeless people in this country, 75 million tribals. So if we are able to help them get the number, then we can actually empower them,” Mr Nilekani had said. But if you want to provide subsidy in cash to the homeless, they will need to open bank accounts. For that the Reserve Bank of India says you will need proof of current address. No problem, says Mr Nilekani, the letter bearing the allotted UID number will have the address. But what if a person has no address?
UID was sold as a way to include (give an officially recognisable and verifiable identity) those who are outside the system. That would also include those who are not destitutes but have no address — the income earning pavement dweller in urban areas or the migrant construction labourer moving from site to site. “There are 75 million homeless people in this country, 75 million tribals. So if we are able to help them get the number, then we can actually empower them,” Mr Nilekani had said. But if you want to provide subsidy in cash to the homeless, they will need to open bank accounts. For that the Reserve Bank of India says you will need proof of current address. No problem, says Mr Nilekani, the letter bearing the allotted UID number will have the address. But what if a person has no address?
Inclusion will be aided, leakages stopped by eliminating duplication, as with duplicate and spurious ration cards. It will usher in a new way of paying out Rs 3 lakh crore in subsidies. But as has become clear with the growing discourse on the number of the poor, assessing income levels to determine whether a person is above or below the poverty line is also an important issue which has nothing to do with eliminating duplicate identities.
Intellectually, the least challenging of the problems that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) currently faces are those resulting from turf battles, the finance ministry not having any money to give and concerns about conflict of interest on the part of the Planning Commission bigwigs (how can a financial adviser advise on some of his own decisions?). The last one takes the cake. If you know how Infosys was built and runs, you would also know that it set benchmarks for transparency and accountability in the country. If you have only so many hours in a day to chase real problems, then the last one to make you lose sleep will be whether UIDAI is properly governed. Why not spend the time instead to calculate how much it takes per day to live with minimum self-respect?
Looking back, re-reading old notes, I wonder if people like me were confused and should have known better. Apart from the dilemma of trying to record the address of someone who has no address, is it good or useful to have a national information repository for all residents in India, particularly when the idea is integrated firmly with the National Population Register conceived by the previous Bharatiya Janata Party government. Is it worth the money, unless your political agenda is to make an issue of illegal immigration so as to get at a particular community? Then again, “It’s a number and the number walks with you,” Mr Nilekani had earlier explained. You can even have it tattooed on yourself so that you don’t forget it. Now it seems there will, after all, be cards too, adding to costs.
Most important, can we have Mr Nilekani, without a UIDAI? IT veteran Ashok Soota, who himself has a strong sense of social responsibility, says, “There is nobody in the country who could have brought together the multiple agencies that had to be integrated, the talent that he [Mr Nilekani] needed to bring on board to create the solutions, his own understanding of such a large-scale project capability and the experience that he brought in. Look at the size and enormity of the task. In order for it to be totally successful it could not just be a registration scheme. You’ve absolutely got the right person in place and I think it is good to just let him complete it. If it does not succeed, it is not an indictment on him but on our system.”
But supposing UIDAI goes kaput, being the brain child of a government in its days of potency, felled by its own contradictions when it began to disintegrate? Should that end Mr Nilekani’s role in government? He heads several entities: an inter-ministerial task force on subsidies, cash transfers and PDS reform; technological advisory group on unique projects; and the committee for electronic toll collection. He is also a member of the national advisory group on e-governance. If you want India to e-enable its governance and Indian IT to benefit from fast-rising domestic demand driven by government expenditure (China’s software sector is far bigger than India’s on the strength of domestic demand), then Mr Nilekani will be your greatest asset.
One way of looking at UIDAI is to see it like defence research. You may not like weapons of destruction but scientific research related to them has given mankind enormous benefits. So irrespective of whether UID was a good idea or not, there is real national gain in using the talents Mr Nilekani has in many many ways for many many years.
Looking back, re-reading old notes, I wonder if people like me were confused and should have known better. Apart from the dilemma of trying to record the address of someone who has no address, is it good or useful to have a national information repository for all residents in India, particularly when the idea is integrated firmly with the National Population Register conceived by the previous Bharatiya Janata Party government. Is it worth the money, unless your political agenda is to make an issue of illegal immigration so as to get at a particular community? Then again, “It’s a number and the number walks with you,” Mr Nilekani had earlier explained. You can even have it tattooed on yourself so that you don’t forget it. Now it seems there will, after all, be cards too, adding to costs.
Most important, can we have Mr Nilekani, without a UIDAI? IT veteran Ashok Soota, who himself has a strong sense of social responsibility, says, “There is nobody in the country who could have brought together the multiple agencies that had to be integrated, the talent that he [Mr Nilekani] needed to bring on board to create the solutions, his own understanding of such a large-scale project capability and the experience that he brought in. Look at the size and enormity of the task. In order for it to be totally successful it could not just be a registration scheme. You’ve absolutely got the right person in place and I think it is good to just let him complete it. If it does not succeed, it is not an indictment on him but on our system.”
But supposing UIDAI goes kaput, being the brain child of a government in its days of potency, felled by its own contradictions when it began to disintegrate? Should that end Mr Nilekani’s role in government? He heads several entities: an inter-ministerial task force on subsidies, cash transfers and PDS reform; technological advisory group on unique projects; and the committee for electronic toll collection. He is also a member of the national advisory group on e-governance. If you want India to e-enable its governance and Indian IT to benefit from fast-rising domestic demand driven by government expenditure (China’s software sector is far bigger than India’s on the strength of domestic demand), then Mr Nilekani will be your greatest asset.
One way of looking at UIDAI is to see it like defence research. You may not like weapons of destruction but scientific research related to them has given mankind enormous benefits. So irrespective of whether UID was a good idea or not, there is real national gain in using the talents Mr Nilekani has in many many ways for many many years.
