Story Dated: Wednesday, February 1, 2012 22:49 hrs IST
In the hurry to meet targets, UIDAI is missing its goals
The division among economists and social activists over whether the Unique Identity (UID) programme, or Aadhaar, will streamline the government's social sector and welfare programme roadmap or disrupt it seems to be widening further. The high profile project, say critics, has become fixated on achieving targets, while losing its way on its goals.
In fact, a bitter row that broke out recently threatened Aadhaar's very existence. The ministries of home and finance took on the UID Authority of India and Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Planning Commission's deputy chairman, echoing the long-simmering apprehensions within the government. The row, however, was papered over soon with Home Minister P. Chidambaram saying his ministry had “no rift” with UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani.
Also, the home ministry agreed to enable its own biometrics smart cards based on the National Population Register (NPR) with Aadhaar numbers, meekly toning down its concerns over the possibility of fraudulent UID numbers creeping into the system. The UIDAI has delegated hundreds of small companies and overnight outfits to collect fingerprint and iris data, leaving gaping authentication holes in the process.
Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh, whose ministry is expected to be a key beneficiary of Aadhaar in large programmes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, preferred to keep his own counsel. Some officials at the ministry later suggested that the home ministry's biometrics card and the Aadhaar number could coexist because they had “different objectives”.
MGNREGS and the National Old Age Pension Scheme entail cash delivery as a fundamental part of their functioning, and Aadhaar, say economists and social workers, can be used efficiently in them. However, Aadhaar's unstated long-term goal of replacing welfare programmes, such as the public distribution system (PDS), with cash worries many. Once the Right to Food Act is implemented, cash disbursal will become an intrinsic option for the government. “Aadhaar functionaries on the ground are telling people that they will get easier access to social schemes if they get the number. They are not telling them that the services will be replaced by cash. The government should state this openly and transparently if it is moving to cash in welfare programmes,” says development economist Reetika Khera.
Apart from the policy issues, Aadhaar is facing many execution challenges as well. According to Nilekani, three per cent of the population has fingerprint problems, which make their registration difficult. Surveys, however, peg the figure at 5-15 per cent. Then another 20 million people have cataract, making iris scan a tough job. Solutions for these problems are yet be figured out. Also, thousands of hastily issued Aadhaar cards are lying unclaimed with post offices and at social work organisations.
The fresh row seems to have rekindled the concerns over the relevance of the UID exercise. Some critics even say it is creating a secondary ecosystem of ‘corruption, collusion and deception', comprising lobbyists, hardware suppliers and those who benefit from fudging UID data.
Glitches detected by pilot schemes have been brushed under the carpet and no real cost-benefit analysis of the project has been done, thanks mainly to the Prime Minister's keen interest in it. But what is worrying economists and social activists more are its tall claims of benefits and non-relevance on the ground. “I am fully convinced that those in charge of this exercise have no understanding of how these social sector programmes or even corruption actually work on the ground. The UIDAI claims that bank transfers will eliminate corruption, but welfare programme cash transfers have since 2008 been made through post offices and banks,” says Khera, who has worked with development economist Jean Dreze, the architect of NREGS.
According to Khera's studies, Aadhaar's impact on stemming corruption and leakage in the system and de-duplication of identities would only be minimal at best. Also, by eliminating the human interface and replacing it with a 12-digit number, it could overturn some crucial positives of the welfare disbursal to the neediest. While aggressively pushing Aadhaar countrywide, say critics, the government ignored more economical and far better options such as smart cards and food coupons.
With an estimated 12.5 lakh crore (about 10 per cent of the GDP) flowing into key welfare programmes and subsidy handouts, the government has too much at stake in terms of economics and politics. By 2014, when the UPA II seeks a fresh mandate, Jharkhand is expected to be covered completely by Aadhaar. The same year, Aadhaar is expected to facilitate direct transfer of fertiliser subsidies to farmers as well. How crucial it is for the government and the UIDAI to achieve its target was evident when Prime Minster Manmohan Singh set up a cabinet committee on UID. The committee is now gearing up to legitimise Aadhaar's rollout countrywide through the approval to a draft law in a rush. The draft, however, has to be reconciled with various privacy violation, intrusion and anti-discrimination laws and concerns already there in the public domain.
Interview/Ram Sewak Sharma, director-general, UIDAI
Aadhaar establishes identity, not entitlements
Has achieving the target of issuing 200 million ID cards by March become the priority of the UIDAI, rather than collecting information to help streamline social sector programmes?
The UIDAI's priority is to provide a unique number to every resident in the country. While enrolment into the system is important, the application and usage of Aadhaar is equally important. The UIDAI is focused on achieving its objectives as mandated by the government. Aadhaar can have a transformational impact on public service delivery, as evidenced in the pilot projects.
The home ministry says Aadhaar data is irrelevant as compared to the smart cards based on the National Population Register data that it is rolling out.
The Aadhaar project is a development initiative by the Planning Commission. Unique numbers are a robust proof of identification based on biometrics and can serve as the basic guaranteed platform over which various other programmes can be built.
Do you think Aadhaar data could be merged with the NPR exercise?
This matter will be brought before the cabinet committee on UID and will be resolved soon.
Based on the pilots done on the software in select districts, what were the glitches noticed in implementing the system?
A number of pilots to roll out Aadhaar-based authentication services are underway in Jharkhand, Mysore, Pune and Hyderabad. The pilot studies for Aadhaar-linked payment of MGNREGS [Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme] workers in Jharkhand and the Aadhaar-linked LPG distribution in Mysore have shown promising results. We see Aadhaar as an enabler of access to services and benefits and making financial inclusion a reality for the marginalised sections.
The human interface, which the UID tries to eliminate, often determines the social dynamics of subsidy disbursal to the genuinely eligible. How does the UIDAI plan to address this contradiction?
Aadhaar establishes proof of identity, not entitlements. Aadhaar is not a panacea for all ills. But it can be a foundation for better delivery of services if utilised to its fullest potential.
