GOVIND KRISHNAN V. BANGALORE | 8th Jan
A man looks through an optical biometric reader, which scans an individual’s iris patterns, during registration for Aadhaar cards in Amritsar last year. AFP
Thirty-five-year-old Savithri is one of the hundreds of residents of the Raman Garden slum near Bangalore's central MG Road who have enrolled for getting their Aadhar numbers. The response to enrolment for Aadhar in the slum has been tremendous, with almost the whole colony rushing to get their unique identities issued. There is only one problem. No one has any idea what the number is for.
"I took my family to the enrolment centre when my neighbours told me everybody was applying for this number. They put all my fingers under a machine and took photos of my eyes. They gave us a token and told us that my family's numbers will come by post, but no one has told us what to do with them," says Savithri.
"Slum residents across Bangalore are in the same situation. They have no information about what Aadhar is or what benefits they are supposed to get from it. In some areas, people reported that enrolment agents told them that they would not be able to get ration without Aadhar numbers," says Narasimhappa of Action Aid, an NGO that has been conducting awareness programmes among slum dwellers in Bangalore.
The Karnataka Social Welfare recently issued a circular, making the possession of an Aadhar number compulsory to avail social benefits and entitlements across the state. The Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry, through a gazette notification in September made Aadhar compulsory for LPG connections and refills throughout the country, but backtracked later after strong protests from customers.
“Slum residents across Bangalore have no information about what Aadhar is or what benefits they are supposed to get from it. In some areas, people reported that enrolment agents told them that they would not be able to get ration without Aadhar numbers.”
While the UIDAI says that Aadhar would help deliver benefits like ration, NREGS and pension to the poorer sections of society, civil rights and development activists and NGOs fear that it would only lead to a denial of service and increase corruption in the PDS system. They claim that the haste in which the project was implemented, and the delegation of data collection, storage and processing to private companies was done keeping in mind the massive business opportunities that the implementation of Aadhar will create.
According to a study conducted by the brokerage firm CLSA, Aadhar implementation would create commercial opportunities of $20 billion in the long run, with at least $10 billion worth of business within the first six years itself. Anirudha Dutta, CLSA's deputy head of India research and co-author of the study says, "The main business opportunities would be for the banking sector, the telecom companies and the software industry. The Madhya Pradesh government is already integrating Aadhar with the PDS system and has hired HCL as the technological consultant for the purpose. As NREGA subsidies and various other government schemes are integrated with Aadhar banking, mobile phone, software and hardware companies will see a great expansion in business volume."
