Opinion Why Nilekani needs a broader mandate
Dr Manmohan Singhs government deserves kudos for appointing Nandan Nilekani as the head of a super-ambitious national...
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Dr Manmohan Singhs government deserves kudos for appointing Nandan Nilekani as the head of a super-ambitious national projectto implement,within three years,a multi-purpose unique identity card scheme covering all Indian citizens. He will be at the helm of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI),which was set up early this year and is attached to the Planning Commission. One of the icons of the Indian IT industry,he is certainly the right choice for the task. After contributing to the phenomenal success of Infosys Technologies,which he co-founded with N.R. Narayana Murthy,he has chosen to sacrifice his corporate position to take up a major responsibility in government.
Nilekanis transition to public life was presaged by the best-selling book Imagining India,which he wrote last year to explore,what he termed in its sub-title as Ideas for the New Century. Although the unique identity card scheme was discussed at length in the book,the idea itself is not new,nor can it be uniquely credited to the UPA government. Its first spirited votary was L.K. Advani,who,as Home Minister in the NDA government,made it one of his pet themes and even launched it as a pilot scheme in select districts. Sadly,like many pilot schemes in our country,it remained at the pilot stage for the first five years of the UPA government. Now the Prime Minister has done the right thing by rescuing it in time for the forthcoming 2011 census.
It is not often that governments scout outside talent to spearhead important national programmes. Both our bureaucracy and the political class have perfected the art of filling government bodies with their own people,regardless of whether the appointee is the best person for the job. For bureaucrats it is a way of hopping on to post-retirement perches and for politicians it is a way of accommodating those who cannot be made MLAs,MPs or ministers. It is high time our leaders realised that the country is bigger than the politicians and bureaucrats. There is no dearth of public-spirited,highly capable and deeply committed professionals outside the government system who can,and are willing to,shoulder challenging assignments. Sadly,very few get the opportunity they deserve. Now that the Congress is back with a bigger mandate,can we hope to see more Nilekanis being given leadership positions in governmental programmes in education,healthcare,housing,infrastructure development etc?
Measured in terms of its potential benefit and transformational impact,the Unique Identity Card scheme can turn out to be historic. However,the potential will reach its fullness only if the scheme is integrated into the larger matrix of e-governance and g-governance (g stands for good). And this is where the UPA government needs to view the UIDAI not as a stand-alone body but as an important component of a larger mission to achieve improved governance and better socio-economic development using the revolutionary tools that IT provides.
A major drawback in e-governance initiatives in India is that they are not explicitly linked to,and measured by,the goals of g-governance. Which is why,many government departments routinely reduce e-governance to simply procuring more IT hardware and software. Moreover,the departmental mentality is so deeply entrenched in government that they rarely work in unison to achieve common and inter-related objectives. Thus,their e-governance initiatives suffer due to duplication,non-standardisation,non-scalability and poor training,all resulting in wastage of resources and poor outcomes. The UIDAI can catalyse a change in this pattern. For this,it needs to be properly conceived with an enlarged mandate. If the government gives a purely technical mandate to the UIDAI,it will not be difficult for Nilekani and his team to issue a basic ID card to all citizens,just as the Election Commission has done so in respect of the voter
ID card.
However,from the point of view of both the citizen and the government,the full benefits of the unique ID card begin to flow only when the multiple purposes for which it can be used can be seamlessly integrated into it. This requires considerable re-engineering of the functioning of various entities of government,right from the Centre to the panchayat. For example,citizens will judge the success of the unique ID scheme on the basis of whether it reduces corruption,harassment and delays in their interface with government. Else,they will view it as a needless encumbrance,meant more to advance the none-too-transparent goals of babudom than to meet the felt needs of citizens themselves.
My suggestion is that the Prime Minister should set up something like a Good Governance Reforms Implementation Authority,chaired by him so that he imparts to it the full weight of his office. The Administrative Reforms Commission,set up by the previous UPA government under the chairmanship of Veerappa Moily,has made a comprehensive set of recommendations,almost all of which have an E-governance component. And nearly all of them require the implementation of the unique ID scheme. These recommendations encompass the issues of national security,development,corruption-free delivery of government services,and transparency,efficiency and accountability in the functioning of various institutions of democracy (including the judiciary). Hence,the UIDAI should function as a subset of a larger mission for the promotion of good governance. Moreover,the Centre should proactively make all political parties,state governments and local self-government bodies partners in achieving speedy progress of both the unique ID card scheme as well as the broader mission for good governance reforms.
Nilekanis is by no means an easy assignment. There are many thorny issues that he will have to handle,above all a change-resistant system of governance. He needs our good wishes.
sudheenkulkarni@gmail.com
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