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| Dilip James: We are all an item number | | The government?s quest for unique ID for its citizens is like Mission Impossible |
| Dilip James / Bangalore Feb 11, 2012, 00:54 IST |
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The winter session of Parliament in 2011 was drowned out in the din of tabling the Lok Pal Bill. In the build-up to the session, many Bills to be tabled were sent back for reconsideration by the respective parliamentary standing committees, including the Unique Identification (UID) Bill. While the objective of UID is laudable, even keeping aside issues with political overtones the members do seem to have raised some valid concerns.
When you consider the various forms of identity that have been bestowed on us ordinary citizens in the past, one can appreciate why some of the standing committee members expressed indignation at “yet another identity”. That most of these identities have three-letter acronyms may not be intentional, though it seems better than the four-letter alternates. Among the various IDs or, as the financial institutions call it, Know Your Customer (KYC) instruments, that I have been blessed with are a PAN, MIN (now not in use but the rage a few years ago), voters ID (VID), Directors Identification Number (DIN) and soon a UID as well. Apart from this, one may also have a ration card and some other state variant. In effect, after at least six sets of “unique” identifiers I find various government departments still thinking that one is enough uniquely identified. Each of these ID schemes when they were conceived and brought into effect were backed by genuine explanations from the government department concerned on its need and why it had to be independent of the others. Hence, is it not a genuine concern that some of our elected representatives voice on the finality of the UID, given that at least one more ID by way of a National Population Register (NPR, another three-letter one!) number is potentially also underway.
Could not a project entailing lesser spends than the thousands of crores being pumped into UID been first undertaken to unify some of these disparate sources of existing “identities”? It has been reported that the government has decided that data for half the population will be captured by UID and the other half by NPR — a truly bureaucratic solution to keep both parties satiated while resolving the tussle between the UID and NPR organisations. These two humungous databases will then also have to be unified. This exercise is possibly fraught with danger, if one were to go by the example of a recent attempt by the government on a much smaller scale. The ministry of corporate affairs undertook an exercise to validate DIN with the PAN data. Possibly the lack of a name validation check in processing logic led to numerous rectification mails being sent out to individuals without details of the actual mismatch. The recipients then had to revalidate data for something as simple as the middle name not being used in either the PAN or DIN, even though all other details including name, surname, date of birth, PAN and so on matched. Still, it does beg a question that if UID and NPR data is to be reconciled anyway, would not an attempt in this direction with existing VID and PAN and so on have provided a validated database of IDs for 50 to 60 per cent of the population in the first place? This may have also helped eliminate duplication in these IDs. For governments, the scale of “transformational impact” of their projects is possibly measured by the amount of money spent or allocated. To add to this, as I write this article, it is being reported that the Election Commission plans to soon capture biometrics of voters and that the agriculture ministry has proposed another ID independent of UID managed by the National Informatics Centre for public distribution system (PDS) disbursements! So we have not yet seen the last of the ID’s!
A key benefit of UID envisaged is for the marginalised to whom direct cash transfers could be effected, replacing the existing leaky food and other subsidies. Intriguingly, on the government’s website, Aadhar is still not listed among documents accepted as address proof for the issue of a passport. Would citizens need another proof of address to open a bank account? If UID does suffice then why can it not be accepted for obtaining other documents like a passport and so on? It also raises the question as to what purpose UID serves a resident who does not need to avail of any government subsidy or support. Does it become another meaningless number, much like what became of MIN for mutual fund investors? Unlike the US social security number that is ubiquitous in its acceptance, Aadhar runs the risk of not being the only ID required, diminishing its impact. Or is it that as the world largest “item number”-producing nation caught in the prevailing KolaverID mood, this is the government’s own little contribution to that creative cause?
The author is a Bangalore-based independent corporate advisor
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