Posted: Sat Dec 10 2011, 00:26 hrs
Aadhaar, the ambitious Unique Identity Number project, is still experiencing runway trouble. A parliamentary standing committee on finance, headed by BJP MP Yashwant Sinha, has expressed its reservations about the National Identification Authority of India Bill (which would have provided statutory backing to the UID scheme) in its current form.
Opposition to the Aadhaar project runs along a few familiar lines — that it does not seek to be clinching proof of citizenship, and that it duplicates the more rigorous efforts of the Registrar-General of India.
Some worry about the ramifications for privacy, in having a single, biometrics-based tracking number rather than diverse identification systems, and the fact that private organisations have been roped into collecting data for Aadhaar.
The technology itself has been questioned in certain quarters, while others are concerned about the rising costs of the scheme.
The standing committee’s views are, obviously, not binding on the government — they are merely a part of the legislative process, and several bills have been passed, even recently, without incorporating any standing committee suggestions.
However, before the Aadhaar project goes to Parliament, it would help if the UPA exerted itself more to allay these concerns and explain why it is entirely worthwhile.
After all, it would finally create a precise way to get social entitlements across, and be a full and valid proof of identity, in a country where, for many people, it can be a struggle to furnish such proof. It can be used for school enrolments, for rural banking, for NREGA payments, and much more — it will make it impossible to inflate muster rolls or attendance registers, and cut down hugely on leakage and corruption.
However, despite its obvious game changing promise, Aadhaar has been thwarted by the UPA’s own inability to speak up for its best ideas. In the early days of the project, it had full political backing, and was insulated from bureaucratic and activist interference.
However, now that signal appears significantly weaker — despite the fact that Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi has repeatedly spoken up for the scheme, there is still a sense that many sections of the government have been reluctant to fully own and defend it.