M Rajshekhar, ET Bureau Apr 3, 2014, 11.59AM IST
The foundation of Aadhaar—a Congress flagship project to give every Indian a unique identity number and then use it to deliver services—has been under assault in the past three months.
Political, legal, reputational.
The political backlash is coming from leaders of BJP, the Congress' principal rival. Meenakshi Lekhi and Ananth Kumar are not, by any stretch of the imagination, the first or the last word on policy matters in the BJP, but they mince no words when they say that if their party forms a government, it will trash Aadhaar —a project that has delivered a unique ID to half of India and on which Rs 3,800 crore has been spent.
Even as BJP's loose cannons fired, the Supreme Court repeated on March 24 that the government cannot make Aadhaar mandatory to access welfare services like pensions and LPG subsidy. The same day, investigative journalism portal Cobrapost aired videos that allegedly showed agencies agreeing to enrol people from neighbouring countries for a bribe.
The BJP piled on. "It (Aadhaar) has served no purpose. They have issued cards to illegal migrants. We want citizenship cards," says Prakash Javadekar, spokesperson of BJP. His party does not have an official policy line on Aadhaar as yet, but another of its leaders, Yashwant Sinha, headed the Parliamentary panel that, in 2011, severely criticised and rejected the draft bill that provided the legal framework for Aadhaar. "We are for direct benefit transfer but not on the basis of Aadhaar, which is a very badly-designed scheme," Sinha told CNBC-TV18 on January 31. "We will give it to all citizens of India on the basis of NPR."
On the campaign trail in Bangalore, Nandan Nilekani, the chief architect and implementer of Aadhaar, defends his work as the chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). "Aadhaar is a pro-development and an anti-corruption platform," says Nilekani, who was brought in by the Congress high command in 2009 and is contesting these elections on a party ticket against BJP's Kumar in Bangalore South. "It is a pity that some vested interests with narrow political and other motives are trying to stall the project."
Lost in those binaries are the objectives of Aadhaar, to universalise identity proof and to use it to plug leakages in delivery of welfare services. UIDAI, led by a hands-on Nilekani, pursued this agenda with a certain authority, great speed and an overriding emphasis on technology, all of which delivered outcomes.
But they also contributed to shortcomings that saw the project stumble on its way and for which it is now being critiqued. "This is the only way transformation takes place," says K Koshy, who was part of the team that conceptualised Aadhaar and is now with Ernst & Young. "When you know the ultimate system is workable, you sort out the problems as you go along."
Except, given the political winds blowing, it's anyone's guess what the new dispensation will feel about Aadhaar and UIDAI, from where Nilekani resigned on March 13 and which is seeing many officers who came from other parts of the government, on deputation, returning. Will the new dispensation see Aadhaar as an idea that is sound but with parts that need strengthening? Or, will they see it as an idea that is, by itself, fallacious? "I don't know where this is going," says Abhijit Sen, member, Planning Commission, under which UIDAI is housed.