[Reader-list] Unique ID card - will it be the last one? -152

[Taha Mehmood]

http://www.merinews.com/article/unique-id-card---will-it-be-the-last-one/15776517.shtml

The government's ambitious project to prepare a unique ID and national
database for all Indian citizens, is a bold and innovative step, but
will it be the last card a citizen is to be supplied? Will it serve as
the master card of all cards?.

THE GOVERNMENT of India came out with the bold decision of
establishing an authority, namely the National Authority for Unique
Identity (ID), headed by Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of Infosys, to
issue unique ID cards to Indian citizens. Nilekani, for his part, did
the right and honourable thing of quitting from his corporate post
before undertaking this huge challenge.

The budget has allocated Rs120 crores for this job also and the stage
is set for this work to begin. Nilekani himself has said that first
batch of such cards will be made available for distribution sometime
in the last month of this year. Secretarial infrastructure for this
enormous task is being set up and personnel necessary for secretarial
back-up is being provided. One RS Sharma, an IAS officer of the
Jharkhand cadre, has been made second man in this authority. We hope
that things move at a smooth pace.

Nilekani has hinted that each citizen will be allotted a unique number
and that the details will be tamper-proof. Such citizen cards have
become very necessary in view of the growing problem of illegal
immigration especially from countries like Bangladesh and Nepal, and
also the threat of terrorism. A task of such a magnitude is not
without its hitches, especially in the face of the harsh reality of
vote bank politics.

Will it be master card of all cards
Coming to the technicalities of this card, he said that this Unique ID
would not replace existing ID cards or numbers which Indians have been
issued in documents like passports, ration cards, PAN cards, etc. This
means that these cards shall remain in existence alongside the
proposed Unique ID. Nilekani clarified that the Unique ID numbers may
be used in other numbers or cards issued by various authorities for
specific purposes. Nilekani's clarification has cleared doubts from
the minds of billions of common people who thought that this proposed
Unique ID shall relieve them of carrying and preserving dozens of
other cards in their shelves or lockers.

Cards, cards and cards
In our country it is difficult to even count that how many documents
one citizen is required to keep for managing day-to-day concerns. Even
people living below the poverty line (BPL) poor are issued ‘job cards’
to be eligible for employment under NREGS. The government says it is
committed to providing them with essential commodities like rice,
wheat, and cooking oil, either at subsidised rate or free of cost. To
this end, BPL families are issued cards like white cards, red cards,
yellow cards - the colour of these cards change with the government
and in some cases changes with the collector. People living above the
poverty line (APL) are also entitled to food grains from Public
Distribution System (PDS) shops; colourful cards have been issued
towards this end as well.

Apart from these social security cards, almost every department issues
cards or numbers to citizens for specific purposes. For instance, the
IT department issues PAN cards, the sales tax department of provincial
governments issues various numbers to businessmen to carry out their
businesses. Apart from this, the common citizen has to furnish a host
of other ID proofs when one has to open a bank account or applies for
a driving license. In a nutshell, a law-abiding citizen has been asked
to keep innumerable documents with him.
Other Articles by  Om Prakash Yadav


Will it be the last card?
When TN Seshan had assumed charge as Chief Election Commissioner (CEC)
of the Election Commission of India (ECI), he came out with an idea of
providing Voting ID cards to check bogus voting and cleanse the
electoral system. At that point of time, it was conceived that this ID
cards would be multiple-purpose and would replace all other cards
which are being used for identification and establishing citizenship
claims. This idea was widely appreciated initially, and people thought
that perhaps preparation of these cards would put to an end all the
hardships they faced in this regard. The campaign began with huge
fanfare and enthusiasm. Some states did magnificently well with
regards to percentage of ID cards prepared. Unfortunately, even after
two decades, the process has not seen completion. Needless to say, the
exercise has seen large-scale irregularities and factual errors in
entries.

We need not be pessimistic about this programme however. We hope that
all goes well but the challenge is that Nilekani will have to depend
on imperfect data to begin with. Only time will tell what modus
operandi Nilekani would resort to and adopt in order to make this
Unique ID error-free and final.

We hope that this will be the last such exercise.