NDA should not repeat UPA's mistakes

Surabhi Agarwal July 14, 2014 Last Updated at 13:01 IST

Last week Narendra Modis government quelled concerns over the Aadhaar project. Not only did Prime Minister Modi rule out any merger (or scrapping) of Aadhaar, he also directed
officials to speed up the enrolment process. The direct benefits transfer (DBT) project, which was being rolled out through the Aadhaar platform also has to be expedited. It is being
joked that Aadhaar has received more support from the current government than from the Congress led regime which fathered it.

But, this is where the Modi government has to exercise caution in not repeating its predecessors mistakes.

Instead of pulling out all stops to get cracking at Aadhaar once again (which is expected post Modis vote of confidence), the government
needs to first step back and look at all the structural issues concerning the project. After all, these are the very concerns which led to the
current mess.

First and foremost, the legal sanctity of Aadhaar has to be established. The National Identification Authority of India Bill has been pending for several years now. This is
the same piece of legislation on which the BJP leader Yashwant Sinha chaired Parliamentary Committee had serious objections. The Modi Cabinet needs to quickly debate
the Bill and pass it as soon as possible before any more fingers are pointed at the legality of the programme that is still run by an executive order.

As it details and debates the Bill, the current procedure followed by UIDAI in enrolling the citizens needs to be closely scrutinized. If there are any short-comings because
of which the system is being gamed, those gaps need to be filled 'now'. It will be advisable to further strengthen the enrollment process but the government has to ensure it
doesnt come at the cost of excluding the genuine. While it studies the UID architecture, it is important to draw clear lines between the home ministrys National Population
Register project and UID project. The two warring agencies will be at it again unless their roles are clearly defined. Both can coexist. Let UID cover all residents and NPR
should tell us who is a genuine citizen.

The pending court case in the Supreme Court needs to be closed sooner than later too. In its earlier order, the court had said that no resident should be denied government
services due to unavailability of Aadhaar. As the new government revives old schemes which were linked to the UID number, this order is bound to weigh on the minds of
the bureaucrats. The sooner the government clarifies its stand on making Aadhaar mandatory for government services, the better.

The genesis of the court case lies in the past governments rush to link Aadhaar with possible government welfare payments without studying the ground realities. This
government will do better to draw up a priority list of schemes that will gain the most out of being linked through the UID number. And the list needs to be rolled out on the
basis of priority. It is a good idea to link Aadhaar with marriage registration, but lets open more bank accounts and streamline most leaking subsidies first. Ensuring that
there is enough penetration of the number where these schemes are introduced and people are reasonably educated about the project and its use would also be the start
point for the second phase of the DBT.

However, before any of that happens, the government needs to speed up the Privacy Bill. Once financial transactions, welfare payments and myriad authentication services
are rolled out through the Aadhaar platform, there are bound to be concerns about misuse. The government needs to pre-empt such scenarios and bring out a solid
legislation on privacy and data protection to deal with such issues.

Lastly, all this has to be done in a short period of time. The country has lost enough resources while the previous and the current government flip-flopped on this project of
national importance.
Responses

Ravi S.
After assigning 65 crore Aadhaar by J uly-2014, now the Central and State governments should
concentrate on utilizing the power of Aadhaar number i.e. on Aadhaar-enabled Service Delivery
(AeSD) in 80% Aadhaar holding districts. Innovators and IT industry should concentrate on
developing Aadhaar-enabled software Applications. The immediate priorities are linking
Aadhaar with: tax PAN, bank accounts, land registration, DBT for FFF subsidy (Fuel LPG,
diesel, kerosene, Food PDS, Fertilizers), certificates of Birth, caste, income, education etc.,
social welfare programs (pension, scholarship and health), office attendance etc. It is time now to
detect the corrupts and looters of the nation and put them in jail.
Who is afraid of Aadhaar & why? As of J uly-2014, over 65 crore people (55% of population)
have been assigned Aadhaar and 85 crore (70%) enrolled. As the public databases are getting
interlinked one by one thru Aadhaar number in various states, we see the following effects: 1.
Cheats cannot hold more than one tax PAN to evade taxes and commit other frauds. 2.
Middlemen & officials cannot continue with corruption in social welfare pensions, scholarships,
public health, NREGA, subsidy on PDS ration, kerosene, LPG etc. 3. Ineligible, duplicate and
ghost beneficiaries cannot steal from public welfare programs. 4. Corrupts cannot buy & sell
benami land & building. 5. Corrupts cannot open & operate benami companies for money-
laundering. 6. Corrupts cannot open & operate benami bank accounts for keeping black-money.
7. Criminals, illegal immigrants & terrorists can get detected and tracked. 8. Criminals cannot
hide as records are getting accessible to police from anywhere. 9. Blood-sucking moneylenders
(interest rate 20% to 30% pm) will lose to Aadhaar-enabled bank-lending. 10. One cannot get
another driving license and arms license once it gets impounded. 11. Black-marketers cannot
hoard and sell public resources at premium. 12. Proxy people cannot write exams and cast bogus
vote. 13. Ineligible people cannot misuse certificates of low income, domicile, education degrees
and caste. 14. People cannot get multiple voter cards and ration cards from multiple places.
Rajan
The issue with Aadhaar are relatively minor and can be tackled especially with the BJ P no longer
opposing it as it will get the benefits of better administration. UPA rush to implement it was
good as it demonstrated what Aadhaar could to in terms of subsidy reduction, targetting
subsidies, verifying databases and avoiding duplicates in the LPG scheme even though it caused
some teething issues being a radically new scheme. The speed at which Aadhaar enrolled over
half of the population was commendable and made comprehensive national data bases withing
reach for the first time.