[Reader-list] India's new antipoverty measure: national ID card- 170

[Taha Mehmood]

Dear All,

Here's how the CSM is spinning the ID story for it's readers.

The primary concern is of course that of our -poor- which is followed
by bytes from Nandu, Tom Friedman, Rasmu who is a migrant laborer,
Salik Ram who works as a begger, Mehender Kumar who sorts rubbish, and
Jean Dreze, the economist.

To me it seemed like a -wow- story.

Like Wow!! these Indians are doing something even in these depressing
times and so on.

Kindly read on and please comment.

Warm regards

Taha

PS: One expected some sanity from CSM atleast. This was perhaps best
underscored by not including a single word from NxP people or Infi
gang or TCS crowd or Bartronics network, where perhaps the real
excitement is-




http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0727/p06s07-wosc.html

India's new antipoverty measure: national ID card

India's new antipoverty measure: national ID card
The card's introduction, one of the largest IT projects in the world,
will eliminate a patchwork of local IDs and is meant to improve the
delivery of social services to the poor.
By Mian Ridge | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

New Delhi - Rasmu is happy she moved to New Delhi, where she and her
five small children live in a tarpaulin-and-cardboard shack. Back home
in rural Madhya Pradesh, central India, she was unemployed; in the
Indian capital she has become a road-builder, earning 2,500 rupees
($52) a month.

Besides her parents, there is one thing she misses, however, from
home: the cut-price rice, wheat, and oil she was entitled to there.
Like millions of migrants to India's cities, Rasmu has found her
identification documents mean nothing outside her native state. The
Below Poverty Line (BPL) card that once helped her children eat is now
just a scrap of paper.

It is cases like this that have led India's government to introduce an
ambitious new project: a new national identity card that will be
issued to every one of the billion-plus population.

Unlike India's other innumerable forms of ID – from birth certificates
to tax codes – the new card will be recognized everywhere in the
country. It will feature biometric details that will quickly enable
identity checks. It will link to a vast database, accessible by
numerous government agencies. And its introduction will constitute one
of the world's biggest IT projects.

Unlike most government initiatives designed to tackle poverty, the ID
card scheme has won near universal approval.

"This is long overdue and much, much, much needed to improve the
delivery of public services, something we have been particularly
deficient at," says Surjit Bhalla, an economist.

Failures of antipoverty programs lead to skepticism

Poverty reduction is one of the big promises of Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh, who returned to power for a second term in May. But
antipoverty schemes are almost always greeted with skepticism here
because of the vast quantities of cash that never make it to the
intended recipients. While the government spends a tenth of its budget
on subsidies, economists reckon more than half miss the target.

Take Mehender Kumar, a father of three who earns 3,000 rupees ($63) a
month rifling through heaps of rubbish in New Delhi for plastic
bottles he can sell. He says he has applied for a BPL card three times
– to no avail. Yet he knows several shopkeepers, he says, who earn
several times his salary and possess a BPL card.

The new ID card will make it easy to stop such fraud. "At the moment,
leakage [of money intended for the poor] is around 60 percent but the
ID card could bring it down to 10 percent," says Mr. Bhalla. "This
represents huge savings for the government, but much more important,
it means getting subsidies to the poor people who really need them."

India chooses business entrepreneur to lead program

This bold scheme will be led by Nandan Nilekani, cofounder of Infosys,
one of India's biggest computer-services companies. This month he will
quit Infosys to take the reins of the new Unique Identification
Authority of India, a job that carries with it a rank equivalent to
cabinet minister.

As well as being one of India's most famous IT entrepreneurs, Mr.
Nilekani is emerging as one of its more imaginative thinkers. Last
year, he published a book, "Imagining India: Ideas for the New
Century," that explored many of the greatest challenges facing the
country.

He is also known for having inspired the thesis of Thomas Friedman's
work on globalization, "The World is Flat." The two men were in
conversation when Nilekani described a fast-leveling playing field,
sparking Mr. Friedman's idea.

Many observers believe that the appointment of Nilekani suggests the
government is eager to exploit the skills of India's impressive
business sector in improving India's less impressive public sector.

Nilekani describes the project as "very simple actually but …
potentially revolutionary." He says that it could eventually have a
wide range of uses, including "financial inclusion": helping the
two-thirds of Indians who do not have bank accounts.

Some worry system will be abused

At a time of increased worry over terrorism within the country, it is
also hoped that a national ID card will improve national security and
intelligence gathering.

Linked to this is a concern that the card system could be abused. Jean
Dreze, a leading development economist who broadly approves of the
scheme, says he is concerned about possible misuses, "including police
surveillance. People without ID are likely to be harassed."

Nilekani points out that it is yet early in the system's development
and that he will work hard to "balance the benefits with the risks."
He also adds that it will take some time before the system is in
place.

Meanwhile, many of the people to whom the ID card system will make
most difference have no idea of its existence. Salik Ram, a disabled
beggar who sleeps outside one of New Delhi's biggest Hindu temples,
has never possessed any form of ID.

"Why would I apply to the government for anything?" he says. "I'm a
beggar. They don't want me here. I'll never set foot in a government
office for anything."