Opinion How many ideas,Sir-ji?
A huge dilution has taken place in the unique ID programme...
In 2008,Nandan Nilekani published a book titled Imagining India: Ideas for the New Century. Most people will have read the book,since it has continually been on bestseller lists. There was a section in that book titled Getting rid of our phantoms: single citizen ID. This section said,Indias ministries and departments are also quite isolated,with separate fund flows and intricate,over-hyphenated authority levels. As a result these systems require paperwork-choked processes each time citizens approach the state… Creating a national register of citizens,assigning them a unique ID and linking them across a set of national databases,like the PAN and passport,can have far-reaching effects in delivering public services better and targeting services more accurately. Unique identification for each citizen also ensures a basic right the right to an acknowledged existence in the country,without which much of a nations poor can be nameless and ignored,and governments can draw a veil over large-scale poverty and destitution… No one else can then claim a benefit that is rightfully yours,and no one can deny their economic status,whether abjectly poor or extremely wealthy… A key piece of infrastructure that must sit on top of an interconnected grid is the electronic flow of funds… Linking smart cards to such accounts can open up the banking system to hundreds of millions more people.
What a great idea. This is not just financial inclusion,it is citizen inclusion too. And from the point of view of security,it is non-citizen exclusion. The president thought it was a great idea too,that is,government suggested she think it was a great idea. Paragraph 13 of her June 4 speech to Parliament stated,The Unique Identity Card scheme for each citizen will be implemented in three years overseen by an Empowered Group. This would serve the purpose of identification for development programmes and security. Some Cassandras did wonder about paragraph 32 of the same speech,where it said,Targeted identification cards would subsume and replace omnibus Below Poverty Line (BPL) list. NREGA has a job card and the proposed Food Security Act would also create a new card. How many cards were there going to be?
However,Cassandras were silenced when Nilekani was
appointed chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).
Although the UIDAI is located in the Planning Commission,this job is different. And here is a person who not only has impeccable credentials,but also believes passionately in the single ID business. He should be able to bring about the third most important transformation,M.S. Swaminathan and Sam Pitroda being architects of the first two. I wonder why Nandan Nilekani used the expression phantoms in his book. A phantom is an apparition,a spectre. Whenever I hear the word phantom,I think of The Phantom of the Opera and Lee Falks The Ghost Who Walks. No one reads the comic strip now. But since Nandan Nilekani and I are roughly of the same age,I am sure he must have devoured Kit Walkers escapades once upon a time. The point about the ghost who walks is that he never died,his successors carried on the phantoms role. By that token,we will never get rid of our phantoms and we will never have a single citizen ID. Those ministries and departments will never give up their turfs and their silos. Wasnt that what the president was hinting at in paragraph 32?
Where do we stand now? First,the UIDAI will not issue cards. It will only issue 16-digit numbers with demographic and biometric information. To ensure there is no misuse,these will be random numbers and one cant read anything more into them. This is like one of the Idea Cellular ads,What an Idea Sir-ji,when every individual is given a 10-digit number. This is 16-digits. Just so that we have the mathematics right,this is enough to cover Indias (even the worlds) population many times over. But non-issue of an actual card is no big deal. Let the environment ministry first sort out whether plastics are good or bad.
However,second,numbers will be issued to all Indian residents,not Indian citizens. The UID number will only guarantee identity,not rights,benefits or entitlements. And it will certainly not guarantee citizenship. This probably reflects the home ministrys experience with the multi-purpose national identity card (MNIC) experiment. In pilots,it was found that many people who were issued IDs werent Indian citizens. Let the UIDAI not get into the citizenship issue at all,the home ministry will sort it out eventually. So much for those who thought UID would help the cause of security.
The problem is no one reads things carefully. Paragraph 64 of Pranab Mukherjees budget speech stated,The setting up of the Unique Identification Authority of India is a major step in
improving governance with regard to delivery of public services. This project is very close to my heart… The UIDAI will set up an online data base with identity and biometric details of Indian residents and provide enrolment and verification services across the country. The first set of unique identity numbers will be rolled out in 12 to 18 months. I have proposed a provision of Rs120 crore for this project. Not a single analyst noticed that the FM spoke of Indian
residents,not Indian citizens.
Third,UID numbers wont be mandatory. Ministries and departments might seek to make them mandatory,but thats not the UIDAIs mandate. And therefore,the issue of numbers is demand-driven. I approach the UIDAI for a number,a bit like PAN,and the UIDAI does its know your resident (KYR) exercise. Therefore,unless NREGA or PDS or health or education data are factored in,there is no obvious reason why the poor should get UID numbers.
Fourth,how these numbers will be used is entirely up to ministries and departments. One cannot assume they will be used to deliver public goods and services or target subsidies.
The UIDAI plans to start issuing UIDs in 12-18 months and cover 600 million people within four years. Some good may come of this exercise. But this is not quite what I had thought the UIDAI would be,or what Nilekani mentioned in his book. Dilution has occurred,like that from paragraph 13 to paragraph 32 of the presidents speech.
The writer is a Delhi-based economist express@expressindia.com
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