[Reader-list] Delay breeds corruption, EPIC cards and corruption, role of election commission in breeding corruption.

[Rajen Uppinangadi]

Dear Taha,

 you have made very important and substantial points in the issue of NIC,
very much appreciate them and the concern of the citizens as to use and
misuse of these cards have to be debated and addressed to, by policy makers,
truely, it is stupendous task for any nation with the size of the population
that free India has to address these issues of citizenship, privacy of
citizens, strict control over the information gathered,  identification of
citizens, , who are citizens  by birth, who are naturalised, who are
"illegal" by present laws in force etc. Moreover as we as citizens are part
and parcel of the system of governance have duties to get the ruke of laws
in place starting from ourselves, and as you rightly said, in many cases ,
the voters have failed to take proper steps till the nth minute to get their
right to vote. But more importantly, it is both the citizens and EC which
has not has had and shown keen- ness to implement the epic in a systematic
way. Many cases where the epics were deleted , were sheer due to over hype
in media that there are lakhs of bogus voters.! But funnily, bogus voters
remained, genuine voters eliminated as in the case of twins, Veena and Vani,
who look similar in photos, so the official thought it was a case of
duplication,
 even with ground report that the girla were twins in the same house..!

  As to low percentage of voting there are basically three issues here,
according to my perception, one is "that all politicians are the same, "
type of view, where voter feels that he has to work for his survival and
essentials whoever may come to power, it makes little difference for his
life, thus cynically keeps away from booth.
  secondly, the attitude that my one vote can not change anything, so let me
have a holiday, not the hot summer outing to poll booth type of approach.

  Lastly, the lots of dissenting workers of different parties who had to see
the candidates who were in different parties till last minute, now
contesting from diagnally opposit standpoint, which has given rise to
dissent in all the parties.Such preferred not to go to polling booth at all.

   I agree with you, that NIC is costly affair from national exchequer lots
of funds will go for this exercise, but issue here is,   rules are made so
that all citizens can have orderly, systmatic life, rules  are for making
life convenient to all citizens, such being the case why the rules should
cause inconvenience to all citizens when the officials get away with lazy
office hours with no work./less work.

  If one observes todays generation working in shifts including grave yard
shifts, we understand the work in IT, ITES and how demanding is that work,
hence rewarding remuneration for the work put in.Any way, more importantly,
we have to understand that implementation of any policy in correct method is
more important that policy itself.

Regards,

Rajen.

On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 11:47 PM, Taha Mehmood
<2tahamehmood at googlemail.com>wrote:

> Dear Rajen,
>
> I think any mass based exercise which involves almost 700 million people is
> bound to result in some inconveniences.  This is understandable. So a bunch
> of drunk dalits here or some burqa clad women there will not make much of a
> difference to the overall elections. At best one can conclude that such
> events happen because of the lack of alertness on behalf of the individual.
>
> I do not think that it is government of India's fault that only 50% of all
> the eligible voters voted in the second phase of general elections. There
> were instances of nil voting in several booths in Karnataka. One can only
> interpret this as voter apathy and nothing else. Anyways.
>
> Regarding MNIC. I do not think that as citizens we are in position to do
> wishful thinking about MNIC. I think this decision is for the policy makers
> and the politicians to take. As citizens our role is different. Our role is
> to ask questions. Take our responsibility in our own hands. Generate
> dialogue. Create conditions for a public debate.
>
> As I have said earlier, I would unhesitatingly go for a MNIC card, if my
> government decides to go for a national roll out. My position has not
> changed. I have a driving licence, a voter ID card, a passport and
> inshalllah I will have MNIC too, if that is going to be the case.
>
> That aside. Now regarding the broad picture concerning a national identity
> card, I want to put to use, my role as a citizen to ask questions.
>
> -How does the government of India plans to identify -citizens-, when we in
> India have a presence of a huge amount of transient population, undocumented
> population, and invisible population? Almost 300-400 million people.
>
> -How will the data so collected be used?
>
> -How can we (citizens of India) ensure that the highly sensitive personal
> data which we will share with the government like finger biometrics, bank
> account details, land records and so on will be put to just use?
>
> -Will the government of India subcontract the issuance of MNIC to private
> sector? What will be the terms of such a contract?
>
> -What is the time frame of such an exercise? How much money will be
> required?
>
> -Has the Government of India made some policy regarding MNIC? If yes, then
> what is the nature of such a policy?  What is advantages of such a policy?
> What are its drawbacks? Why are policy documents regarding MNIC not made
> public? Why is NICNET website on MNIC is still -under construction- even
> after five years of introduction of MNIC program?
>
> - IS there any other way wherein the Government  can document the entire
> country while using Existing technologies? which will certainly involve less
> public money. What happened to the very INDIAN attitude of Jugaad and
> re-use?
>
> I think you make an interesting point that why can't government servants in
> other department be pooled for the census survey, I agree with you, however,
> I do not think that any Government can override itself by ignoring
> departmental boundaries. There are certain procedures which are binding in
> departmental matters and no government can ignore them.
>
> For us, the people of this country, the task at hand, is to is play the
> role of citizens. Which explicitly requires, that we ask questions. Because
> not only does MNIC involves a huge amount of public money but also after its
> implementation it will have an impact on our day to day living and even in
> the manner we interact with each other as a society.
>
> Regards
>
> Taha
>
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