[Reader-list] UIDAI may be statutory body soon- 173

[Taha Mehmood]

Dear All

I wonder what happens to this entity called -political will- when one
wants to talk about infrastructure around sanitation or health or
education or old age care. UIDAI will now have permanent office and
going by the so called -disquiet- distributing IE, there's talk of
passing some act in the parliament to possibly make UIDAI durable.

Regards

Taha

http://www.frontline.in/stories/20090814261604900.htm

UIDAI may be statutory body soon

Amitabh Sinha Tags : UIDAI, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee Posted:
Wednesday, Jul 29, 2009 at 0246 hrs New Delhi:

After getting a high-profile person to head it, the government is now
working towards converting the recently-formed Unique Identification
Authority of India (UIDAI) into a statutory body backed by an Act of
Parliament, it is learnt. The move — when it comes through — will
ensure that the Authority becomes a permanent organisation so that
future governments are unable to scrap the project to provide unique
identification numbers to people.

An empowered Group of Ministers (GoM) under Finance Minister Pranab
Mukherjee is said to have given an in-principle approval to grant
statutory status to the UID Authority. However, a final decision in
this regard is expected at the next meeting of the GoM which also has
Law Minister M Veerappa Moily and Home Minister P Chidambaram as
members.

The move is in sync with the seriousness being attached to this
project by the UPA government. The UID scheme was originally meant to
be prepared from existing databases, like those being used for public
distribution system, and intended to ensure a better delivery of
services to the beneficiaries of government schemes and programmes. It
was supposed to be executed by the Department of Information
Technology and formation of the Authority was not envisaged. The UID
Authority under former Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani, however, has been
given a much wider mandate. It has been tasked with the responsibility
of providing a unique number to all residents above the age of 15.

Sources said the UID Authority is ultimately envisioned to be merged
with the Office of the Registrar General of India, which is the
repository of all records relating to citizens, they said.