Unique Identification (UID) scheme: what does it hold?

By 365businessdays at February 18, 2011 09:00
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Unique identification mission was launched by Indian government in year 2006 with the objective to provide identification to each citizen of the country. This identification was primarily meant to be used for efficient delivery of welfare services in the country. Wipro Limited is the consultant for design and project management phase of the project. There will be a 10 digit identification number on each card that will be used to serve multiple purposes. To ensure successful implementation, some critical information need to be collected about the user i.e KYR (Know your resident) fields (Name, Address, Gender and Date of birth), Photo and address verification, fingerprints on slap scanner and Iris scan.

Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry of India has taken the lead in the use of UID scheme. Under a new program, all school children will be provided an UID so that their progress across classes can be tracked. This will also help in monitoring the dropout rate and to control the dropout trend. Additionally, UID will help to keep a track of student’s movement across educational institutions, and their academic records. The mission will be run in coordination with civil society groups.

UID has generated new hope amongst people. Government of India feels that the system will help to curb corruption involved in its various rural programmes like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Rural Health Mission, Bharat Nirman, National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme etc. Government also hopes to control the rise of terrorism and crime in the country with the help of UID scheme.

UID will not only be resourceful for the State for proper administration but can be used to achieve diverse goals. These IDs can also be of use to Insurance companies, Banks and microfinance institutions, Income tax department, Mobile Service providers, Passport offices etc. In this case, UID will be a primary source of verification and will help in reducing time spent in verification process. The scheme can also be used to control the menace of “fake credentials” and identity cards such as “Ration card”, voter ID card etc. In case of UID, magnetic flash memory chip will be used to secure the true information about the card holder which may not be easily duplicated. UID can also be used to contain illegal migration in the country from the borders.

The key objective of the UID is to make the social services available to poor section of the nation.  As of 2010, approximately 37% of India’s population live below poverty line. To address this issue, the government of India has been striving to deliver the basic essentials to these poor people such as food. Fertilizers, fuel etc. Due to corruption and ignorance of the poor people (about the facilities they can avail), it was difficult for government of India to achieve their targets. The UID will play a fundamental role in helping the government to deliver these services to the people for which those are meant. 

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2/21/2011 7:06:39 AM #

Hi Team 365,

As a sequel discussion to the one you people posted on the "mafia of oil" and its draconian implications - a glaring example of which has caught the recent media attention and public compassion, the discussion on UID is extremely apt and relevant. One of the biggest sore points of the India Development story is that it is far from its potential and also hugely lopsided. Leakages are one of the biggest culprits for this. The social sector spending rarely reaches the target and is often siphoned off midway by people who work in cohort and nexus. And this money finds its way into several syndicated vulgarities that we often find being talked about such as the stashed away unaccounted money, improprietary in election funding etc etc. It often fuels a lot of social discontent some of which is also bloody and can gravitate into what we call the red army.
The UID will and can go a long way in curbing the menace as it can very effectively ensure that our spending, particularly the social sector and subsidized spending actually reaches that section of the Indian polity that it is meant for. There will be no proxy hijacking of these resources which from Western and developed nations standards are anyhow paltry on a per capita basis but accumulate into colossal amounts given the large number of  people who are the intended beneficiaries. Once it is not possible to hijack the agenda and intention of the social / subsidy expenditure, it will naturally cascade a process of social and other reforms including development reaching the bottom of the pyramid. If the farmer only can buy his allocation of the subsidized diesel in a track-able method of consumption mapped to a UID which then also captures his economic and social status, it will become simply impossible for the petrol pump owner to collude with anyone to claim a larger than actual consumption of subsidized diesel. Move a step further, and imagine the farmer also buys the diesel at the market price and basis his actual consumption gets a cheque in his bank account for the subsidy part and for the consumption he made in that month and was entitled to.
India is a country that so to speak provides technology solutions to the whole world and it is about time that we used it in our country in manners such as the UID program to bring about real changes in our methods of governance and inclusive growth programs for social and economic empowerment of the polity. Kudos to Infosys yet again and one of its founding members to have rolled out a program such as the UID in a time bound manner and with precision ( I am sure they would have the right architecture to make it truly scalable) and I hope that there is no collusion to subvert the UID implementation and its intended purpose and logic over the long term since it may soon start hitting the interests of some of the rich and famous. I also hope that the multiplicity of identities should be done away with and let there be just two documents - the UID and the Passport.

Prakash Prabhakar India

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