I was excited by the idea of Aadhar or unique identity number (UID) when it was launched two years ago. Unlike many of its strong supporters, I never thought it would solve all the problems in targeting public subsidies and tracking tax defaulters. Yet I was for the idea. I have a social security number in the US and I thought it would be cool to have something similar in India too. I must confess that I never carefully followed the arguments on either side. Nor did I do even a crude benefit-cost analysis of the project. Frankly, I did not even know how much the whole thing would cost. I was using really rough heuristics: election ID cards helped clean the election system; the UID would also make life convenient and would be helpful in may ways we cannot even foresee. So, let’s do it. Detractors sounded like conspiracy theorists to me. Oh! the left-liberals who oppose everything the government tries to do!
But this article in today’s Hindu makes me rethink. A standing committee of Parliament, praised for its professionalism and rigor by Mr. Nandan Nilekani himself, has come down heavily against the UID project in its current form. The project is being implemented in a hurried manner without authorization from the Parliament using an identification system and a technology that is both unreliable and hugely expensive. If this is indeed true, as it seems to be, then we need to do a serious rethink before committing more money and more resources to the whole Aadhar project.
It will be great to hear Mr. Nilekani’s response to these criticisms. I am also surprised how other leading newspapers have not covered this report by the standing committee of the Parliament at all. All we get to read about Parliament is the serial disruptions.
December 17, 2011 at 8:26 pm |
So the implementation is sloppy and the government must do something to get their act together. Can you tell me again why UID is a bad idea? Because of the biometric technology which has some error rate? Why does a measurement system have to be perfect and not good enough? The lack of data protection act? Yes they must get that one, not only for this project but for all others too like mobile companies, websites which collect user data etc. Expensive project? I agree and fear it may become another Commonwealth games like story of corruption. Lack of research before launching the project? You researchers must sometimes trust the hunch of the implementers. I cannot overstate how convenient and effective it was to have the data and unique IDs of all the tribal farmers and employable youth for implementing agriculture and employment projects in Gujarat. I wish we had the same for children. It would have been so much easier to track the out-of-school tribal children and put them back in schools. We want the government to give us the right to education but we do not want them to have enough information to better implement it and then blame the implementation, of course. More information is always better than less information, remember? So, can you tell me again why UID is a bad idea? Leaning left, are you?
January 4, 2012 at 12:23 pm |
hi my name is gopinath murthy and i live in ambattur. For the past few days i was noticing a huge crowd every moring lined up in front of a building adjacent to oriental bank of commerce branch. I also noticed that there were police constables controlling the line etc etc.As i was always driving to the office i didnt bother to stop and enquire and assumed that maybe some finance company has closed and cheated people etc etc.
Today i had some extra time on hand and the curiosity made me go to this place. What i experienced was pathetic. It was the AADHAR CARD ISSUING CENTRE.
They had pulled teh shutters half way and one girl organiser (staff from aadhar ) was yelling the crowd to disperse. she was shouting in tamil asking all the people not to wait. When i attempted to ask she frawned with irritation saying we will issue only 100 application forms per day and we can process only that much.
I SPOKE TO A GUY IN THE QUEUE AND HE SAID HE WAS STANDING IN LINE SINCE 4 A.M. as his neighbour apporached this centre the previous day and had stood in the queue at 4 am and could get his turn as soon as the centre opened.
Visual head count i could easily see more that 200 people in the queue, confused and waiting in anticipation. This lady was chasing away people asking them to come again tomorrow and try their luck.
So many romours that we will not be offered Ration from PDS schemes , LPG cooking cylinders will not be booked unless we have aadhar etc , school admissions will not be possible were being preached by the senior citizens who had their own interpretation .
what shook me most was when i just turn and looked beyond i saw one guy on the wheel chair also in the que and the morning sun was merciless on him . when i asked him he said he needed PDS ration to meet his monthly food needs and was scared that not having AADHAR would make him stare if the rule is passed etc .
WOW WHAT A WAY TO IMPLEMENT THE UID. hats of to the planning commission and mr nandan for this approach.
India is a vast country and highly populated. Would it not be wise to capture data in all govt institutions like BANKS, LIC, STATE and CENTRAL GOVT offices , POST OFFICES, RAILWAY TICKET BOOKING OFFICES ETC to ISSUE AND VERIFY AADHAR. SOME WAY OR THE OTHER A COMMON MAN APPROACHES THESE PLACES and simultaneously when he visits he can get this activity done .
GOOD SCHEMEN uid BAD IMPLEMENTATION as usual by the indian govt.
January 13, 2012 at 10:53 am |
[...] Indians in last one year, the UID scheme is facing some rough weather now. A few weeks ago, I had written about a Parliamentary Committee’s objections to the UID project and its allegedly shoddy implementation. The home minister of India, Mr. P. [...]