9/17/2013 @ 2:28PM |2,555 views
Naazneen Karmali, Forbes Staff
I write about India's wealth creators.
The hot topic in New Delhi, apart from controversial politician Narendra Modi’s emergence as a prime ministerial candidate for the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, is that billionaire Nandan Nilekani, cofounder of outsourcer Infosys who now works in government as the head of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) may be preparing for his next star turn: a career in full time politics. News reports Tuesday indicated that Nilekani will likely be offered a ticket by the Congress party to contest the 2014 federal elections from his home base in Bangalore.
While the news is as yet unconfirmed, the Mint newspaper called it a “brave decision and well-timed”. The ruling Congress party-led United Progressive PGR -0.74% Alliance, lashed by a series of corruption scandals desparately needs to inject a dose of credibility in its ranks that someone like Nilekani can bring.
The billionaire entrepreneur quit the board of Infosys in 2009, after nearly three decades with the company, when prime minister Manmohan Singh chose him to head the UIDAI, an ambitious government project to provide an identity number to every resident Indian. When I spoke to Nilekani last year about that move, he’d acknowledged that it had been “ a big shift from my comfort zone”.
Though a political novice, Nilekani is no longer a stranger to the machinations of New Delhi, a city he has adopted as his second home. (His heart still beats for Bangalore though, as he once told me.) Nilekani’s four-year UIDAI stint has had its rocky moments and at one time, the project seemed to be in jeopardy when it encountered opposition from an array of political stalwarts within the Congress itself.
But Nilekani was able to hold his own and today the project is touted as one of the current government’s notable successes. UIDAI has issued over 400 million identity cards to date and Nilekani recently said that he’s confident that 600 million cards will be issued by 2014 which means every other Indian will have one. The 12-digit Aadhar card is already being used to open bank accounts and for transfer of cash entitlements, among much else. Nilekani’s 5 year term at UIDAI ends July 2014 but the dive into politics would require him to step down earlier and hand over charge to a suitable successor.
The shares in Infosys that Nilekani still retains along with his family, keep him in the ranks of the country’s wealthiest. But Nilekani along with wife Rohini also feature among the ranks of India’s most generous for their philanthropic efforts. Nilekani’s former Infosys colleague, the legendary N.R. Narayana Murthy who recently returned for a second stint as the company’s executive chairman, has shunned a political career on the ground that politics was a ‘complex canvas’ and he wasn’t suited for it. Nilekani’s call may well be different.
This story appears in the November 5, 2012 issue of Forbes Asia.
Nandan Nilekani: In His Own Words
As Told To Naazneen Karmali
Joining the government three years ago as head of the Unique Identification Authority of India was a big shift from my comfort zone. I had spent over three decades in the private sector as an entrepreneur and also served as Infosys‘ CEO. I felt that this was an opportunity to make a contribution to a public cause.
It was a gigantic project with a goal of providing an identity number to all resident Indians. It had the potential to transform the lives of millions of people who don’t have any document from the state acknowledging their existence. In the old days it didn’t matter as people tended to stay in the villages. But today, when there’s such large-scale migration into cities, having an identity is crucial. Without it you become a nonperson. In India there’s a huge divide between people with an ID and those without.
With the online ID number, which we call Aadhaar, a person can open a bank account, get a mobile connection and, eventually, a host of government services. The government has already committed to linking direct cash transfers of pensions, scholarships and other entitlements to Aadhaar. Today the government allocates around $30 billion in entitlements and $40 billion in subsidies annually. Aadhar will ensure this money is reaching the people who are entitled to it.
So far the world’s largest biometric database in the U.S. has around 120 million records. Our database will be ten times larger than that. This has never been done in the world before, so we’re treading new ground.
Rohini Nilekani
Rohini Nilekani, wife of Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, disclosed Friday that she has recently sold 577,000 shares out of the 8 million shares that she holds in the outsourcer. The sale reduced her stake marginally from 1.41% to 1.31% which is still worth close to $370 million (Husband Nandan who now works for the government heading up the Unique Identification Authority of India, holds 1.45%). The funds from the share sale, amounting to $27 million pre-tax, will be deployed in various charities in the areas of water, education, environment and governance that Nilekani supports.
A former journalist and author, Nilekani, 53, has been an active philanthropist for more than a decade having donated over $40 million but doing much more than writing checks. In 2001 she founded Arghyam, a non-profit that focuses on water and sanitation issues and is funded by her personal endowment. It has so far given grants to projects in 22 states. She’s also founded Pratham Books, a charity that publishes children’s books. Nilekani’s efforts earned her a spot among Forbes Asia’s annual list of Asia’s Heroes of Philanthropy in 2010.
“ Rohini is definitely among the country’s leaders in philanthropy and her work is path-breaking, “ said Deval Sanghavi, founder of Dasra, a philanthropy advisory in Mumbai. “Her big, differentiating factor is that she’s backing several social enterprises and enabling them to grow in scale.”
Apart from her own generosity, Nilekani has been a philanthropy champion, speaking out about the responsibility of India’s newly wealthy to give back in a country where extreme riches and abject poverty co-exist. In 2010, when tech tycoon Azim Premji sold shares worth $2 billion to fund his foundation, I’d spoken to Rohini. While applauding the billionaire’s generosity she’d made the point that, “ India’s very rich people have to show their personal commitment, from their own personal money, to achieve broader social justice.”
Last year, when Bill Gates co-hosted a philanthropy gathering in the tech city of Bangalore, Nilekani had played a leading role anchoring a session on water issues. Prior to the meet, I’d asked Nandan what he expected to gain from attending it. “It’s Rohini’s show. I’m going as the husband, ” he’d joked. But Nandan himself has been a regular giver, recently backing the newly formed Indian Institute of Human Settlements, a university focusing on urban development and transformation. The Nilekanis earlier had donated $5 million to Yale University where their children studied, to fund an India studies program. Though among India’s most generous philanthropists, the couple have yet to follow Premji’s example and sign the Giving Pledge.