[Reader-list] News Items posted on the net on Multipurpose National Identity Cards-76

[Taha Mehmood]

http://in.rediff.com/computer/1998/may/04vittal.htm

A card for all seasons
Email this story to a friend. It is high time India brought an
intelligent and integrated approach to this issue of smart cards

Everybody realises that information technology is the most decisive
technology not only for the present but even of the coming century.
This is one technology which has wide reach and affects positively
every aspect of manufacturing and services.

We can see a logical co-relation between increasing use of IT,
especially in services. That's where smart cards come in.


A smart card is basically a card on which a chip has been embedded and
which has immense power to store information of different types. As
the transactions grow, be it in buying or selling or to help the
public interact with the government, the cards can play an important
role.

In developed countries like the US, a movement towards a cashless
society where smart cards rule is already visible. In fact, the
experience of VeriFone, a leading company in the transaction
automation business, is symbolic of where India is and where the
developed countries are. For VeriFone smart cards are designed in
Bangalore, manufactured in Taiwan and used in the US.

So we can see India has an advantage in designing software but fall
short in the use of smart cards throughout our system.

Some years ago we had an energetic chief election commissioner, T N
Seshan, moving for an ID card for election purposes. Recently, we have
seen Home Minister L K Advani seek a multi-purpose ID card since only
the ration card provides identification in India.

India's dalliance with cards depends upon the intelligence and whims
of the powers-that-be. It is high time we brought an intelligent and
integrated approach to this issue of cards. A multi-purpose card for
every Indian would be ideal. These are some of the purposes it serves:

    *
    * Replaces the ration card.
    * It could act as health card, especially when the carrier needs
treatment in emergencies.
    * It could help identify the carrier during the elections.
      It would help various government organisations keep their
statistics up-to-date.

So a systematic attempt has to be made to design the card and to put
together the equipment to read such information. A system also has to
be devised to ensure the information in the card is kept up-to-date.
We need an administrative delivery system that will ensure that
anybody who needs a card is given a card, and that too in a limited
time.

The designing of the card and the delivery system pose interesting
challenges. That we have the software design capability is shown by
the VeriFone experience.

The next question is what will be the resources needed. Seshan's
experiment in ID card cost about Rs one billion. Advani's card is
estimated to cost Rs 20 billlion. So, we have the issue of resources
on the one side as well as other administrative issues that we mention
but it will be useful if we can have a national debate started first
on the use and the implications of the card system and secondly go
about using this.

We in this country are very good discussion and theorising. Where we
lack is in action. Long ago the administration expert Paul Appeal
said, the Indian administration is action-shy. We have now to move on
to getting results.

Perhaps the private section can take the lead. If, for instance, we
use smart cards in marketing, banking, customer service we can make it
easy for the government too to think of smart cards as a means of life
in India.

We hear debates about national information highway. We have the
National Agenda for Governance talking about the role of IT and India
emerging as a software super power. Page 46 of the BJP's election
manifesto mentions the role of IT. But if you want to give a real
meaning to this rhetoric, you have to see how the common man benefits.

And if you can provide him with a smart card that will as a ration
card and an all-purpose ID card, including at election time, perhaps
you would have made a good beginning.

Perhaps later, these cards can be designed to serve as credit and debt
cards or as customer cards. The possibilities are endless. We are now
lacking only in vision and, more important, an immediate action plan.
I hope we will get cracking on this critical issue right away.