When the UID project was being conceived and sold to the people of the country, it was always assumed that the technology required to make the project work was available. The only thing that was not there, most believed, was the organisational capacity to make it happen. This obstacle was seemingly overcome by hiring Nandan Nilekani, a man known for his ability to deliver albeit in a private sector context. It is therefore truly frightening that Nilekani should be saying the project is a very risky one. As he put it, ‘there is no question we are going into uncharted territories’. If this was not bad enough, Nilekani has been honest enough to say that ‘one of the risks is the technology’. Before we risk Rs 150,000 crore on such a project, even if we take Nilekani’s word for the money being well-spent, would it not be better to try a pilot in a place like Delhi or a backward district in Bihar?
Nilekani is probably right when he says the cost of implementing the project in India will be a lot less than it would be if it were done globally. Anyone familiar with the computerisation work done by the National Stock Exchange knows Indian costs are a fraction of those overseas — the NSE used a network of computers (called ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarves’) operating in parallel instead of expensive mainframes. But a little caution and pilot studies are always a good thing.
Madhu Kumar, New Delhi
