The Planning commission of India devised “Aadhaar”, The Unique identification (UID) to provide unique lifetime identities to all Indian citizens and to speed up the delivery of welfare services. The jurisdiction on Pan India level came into existence in 2009 through central government of India. However, the idea was conceived and worked on since the policy of providing Unique ID to all the families under poverty level in 2006, introducing the above within 12 months(UIDAI, 2011). It proved to be a positive sign, if considered as a pilot project.
The primary objective of the number is to deliver a lifetime unique digital ID to all the citizens as all the other identifications are token based, which being voter’s ID, driving license, passport etc. These ID’s have an expiry which when renewed the ID number changes, this distorts the flow. Moreover, these ID’s are not accepted in other states or constituencies. To resolve these issues, the Indian government adopted this policy from social security policy inspired from USA.
This paper would focus on the analysis of the UID policy focusing on the public and there problems and for the policy to be brought into effect. Moreover, this study would analyze the UID policy through evaluating the policy’s cycle to realize the nature, cause and with valuing the difference it had on the general population. In addition, the government of India wants to provide different subsidies via UID to all those in need. The aim of the study is to analyze the possible outcomes of having a unique ID and problems in implementation in context with the large population and corruption indexes in India (Planning Commission, 2007).
Policy Contextual
The main mandate to put the policy into context is to provide unique number to all the citizens of India and work as an identification instrument. It empowers the residents to obtain to the document which may be the first form of identification that they wouldn’t have otherwise access to. This would also enable the government to assemble elementary demographic and biometric data of all citizens. This would help in reduction of identity duplication and help in obtaining passport, driving license etc. and serve as a document for KYC (Know-Your-Customer) policy to open a bank accounts(Vijay, Chugh (Chief General Manager, RBI), 2013). This would also assist banking and financial systems, telecom, education and other systems to provide better goods and services.
The policy campaigned by the then government had high achievable targets. The large population possesses a big challenge and reach to them in remote villages is a big task. Moreover, collection of biometric data of infants and 60yr olds would have acquired different features, as they grow. Therefore, unreliable data could lead to false inferences. In addition, it could face implementation problems as its main office[1] is only in Delhi, where all the data is collected. Therefore, it would be difficult for other states to check the data without difficulty. From the outlook, it seems that, the impossible task with incorrect data could lead to losing the initial agenda for employing the policy.
Issue Identification
India’s subsidy program on an average amounts to be around 14% of its GDP. Yet even after allocating billions of dollars the effect to the poor was minimal. Poor citizen participation and the intended subsidies did not benefit the targeted (Breloff & Rotman, 2011).
The central idea of the policy is to provide identification, empowering the recipients to receive the social benefits entitled to them. The government proclaims that the social service programs could be improved by reducing the leakages in the system (GOI, 2005b). The aspect was to get private and public sector working together streamlined in order for them to deliver the rendered services. The private sector now will be able to rely on one document and deliver services directly to the card holder reducing the middle man transfer channel.
Government through this policy wants to cut down the delays in payments. However, it does not realizes that to replace all the already placed resources would lead to unnecessary costs. This would lead implementation and functional budget to shoot up. However, studies have suggested that the cost of leakages is nine times of the savings they would make if some implementation of UID policy comes into effect. Moreover, profiling of citizens through UID on the basis of caste, creed, religious beliefs etc. would help the government prepare better policies for all (GOI, 2009b). Conversely, only nine government, five central government units and six financial regulators have accepted it as a proof of identity(Planning Commission, 2009). Additionally, the tax department is still out of its purview, which finally backs the fact that a reliable social profile could not be established (CPME, 2008).
Some of the government’s own agencies raised questions on its ability to comprehend. Then Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh also stated that “if either of the pillars gets weak then it would endanger the success of the initiative(ET Bureau, 2012). Even the Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s own organization National Population Register (NPR) opposed the UID’s method of data collection and its objective. Moreover, the home ministry has refused to use UID for NPR. In Addition, if UID policy comes into picture then it clashes with the old and existing policies.
In the prisoner’s act of India, the biometric data collected such as fingerprints should be destroyed after acquittal. However, in UID policy, the data could be stored for indefinite. This made the government declare it as a voluntary document not a necessity document. Even said that according to the Indian Constitution Under article 21, the biometric system IRIS infringes the fundamental right to privacy which brings down the question whether the policy is constitutional (Min. of Law, 1949).
Policy Instrumentation
Indian government introduced the policy through the eleventh five-year plan. The planning commission assessed that the delays and corruption entangling in developmental policies were catastrophic. Therefore, it was proposed that for government-to-consumer (G2C), UID would be domained and for government-to-business (G2B), Corporate Identity Number (CIN) be incorporated to evolve better results in other policy’s implementation. This benefits citizens directly even through the corporate channels. The absence of a system to regular updates for such purpose-specific databases and the lack of a system for corroboration among various departments are costing too much, time consuming and error prone in data collection for each scheme (Planning Commission, 2007).
The aim of the Home Ministry is to eventually convert this policy into a Citizen’s Card, containing all the information. This would allow implicit and the explicit subsidies to the entitled ones directly. The services related to education services, healthcare facilities, food and nutrition, employment, energy, irrigation water, etc. would get a substantial boost in getting the population above poverty line and increasing the standards of living. This would significantly reduce the error of omission and enhance delivery proficiency. This would also increase the efficiency level of agenda setting as the information could be more reliable, if not for others.
Unique-ID for citizens
UID numbers are allotted indiscriminately. The nation is also threatened with illegal immigrants and migrants without paper, this could lead to a major National security loophole. Additionally, basic political and economic rights of the citizens are subdued in case the UID identification is faultless, domestically and internationally. The policy motive also states that this policy would bring identity to those who cannot obtain one, and UIDAI does not provide strong identification then the drive to identify each citizen would go in vain. However, the government thinks that the cross-associations of the major databases of the country would considerably be able to reduce identity fraud and shrink leakages.
Unique-ID for Business
To address the business concerns, The Ministry of Company Affairs have introduced an e-filling programme where documents, registration of companies and publically available corporate data would need digital signatures for submission. The identifiers would be Unique Company’s Identifier Number for both public and private companies, the professionals (Accountants, Company Secretary) will be facilitated by Certified Filing Centers (CFC), and the Director Identification Number (DIN) was incorporated in Companies (Amendment) Act, 2006 under section 226A to 226G. This provides more transparency, which is the need of the hour.
Consultation and Decision
Kingdon (1985) raised two questions first “What factors determine at any given time which items are and are not on the political agenda i.e., are and are not being considered by policy makers with a view to possible governmental action?”. Second “given that an item is on the political agenda, what factors determine which alternative courses of action the policy makers do and do not take into account as they move towards their final decision?” The planning commission of UID consulted over sixty nine Ministries and Financial Institutions, over 30 civil society commissions and organizations from several parts of the country. It also considered views from academicians, lawyers, students, social scientists, NGO leaders, ex-administrators and even historians in various workshops on legal implications of Aadhaar (UID) (Planning Commission, 2010). Memorandum of Understanding were collaborated between the strategists and various government departments for future developmental plans through UID.
Strategic Synopsis
As the strategic vision document of UID received clearance, a committee was formed under the planning commission enabling them for future facilitation on pan-India development. After several meetings and consideration the project was merged with other two ongoing projects, the National Population Registrar and Multi-purpose National Identity Cards to be casted under Citizenship Act, 1995 and the Information Technology Act as an inter-alliance. After several consideration, it was decided that for the first five years the planning commission would be responsible for the UID execution and later it could be attached to the government.
By the first official meeting, the core committee was formulated under Prime Minister’s Council. Making its main function is to handle any issues regarding its functioning, planning, organizing, policy issues & formulation and funding. Through these consultations, the planning commission decided to prepare the project for a pilot study (Unique Identification Authority of India, 2010). This helped the government to determine an approximate timeframe to cover 80 percent of the population.
Implementation
The UID policy can be optimally harnessed only if the implementation is effective. UID commissioned as a statutory body to cater over a billion citizens (Nandan, 2010). Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) will store all the data, ensuring no duplication. The implementation of the UID policy is carried out in collaboration with various service providers like ministries and insurance companies with collaboration from local offices and field agencies. With the help of the private sector, the government wants to rectify the Public Distribution Channel, the petroleum subsidy worth $4.2 Billion (Rangarajan, et al., 2006), $22 billion allocated for the food & fertilizer subsidy (Nilekani, 2011) and other billion dollar subsidies do not reach the needy (Planning Commission report, 2008, 2012).
The UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) has spent over Rs.4181.51 Crore in five years. Cumulatively, they have spent Rs.1001.73 Crore on Information Technology, and have acquired a capital of Rs.854.76 Crore. Moreover, Rs.1989.53 Crore, a substantial part of the budget was allocated for assistance related or enrolment related activities (Planning Commission, 2014). This helped them gather the data of 600 million with 10 lakh new enrolments a day. However, to restore the public’s confidence on confidentiality the Supreme Court of India recently ordered UIDAI for not sharing any biometric information with any third party, government, or private, unless the owner gives authorisation.
The Supreme Court also addressed that UID will not be the only means of getting the subsidies. Some of the private and government agencies do not believe in the “Aadhaar” branded UID policy. It was vastly criticized that the enrolment processes are not safe and fake UID’s would be a huge threat to National Security. One of the issue was spotted in Bangalore, where over 1000 fake UID’s were found, the department there was working under the influence of the sub-contractors. The registration process made it easy for the citizens to obtain a UID. However, it gave a pathway to the illegal immigrants and terrorists. Moreover, trusting companies like Accenture for biometric data collection, who also provides services to Defence department and US intelligence agencies, could be dangerous to the National security.
Evaluation
The UID policy is came into effect in 2009. Since then the committee came into existence, it has collected data of more than 600 million citizens. It was possible because of collaboration with Public Distribution System. This is of major importance, as it would lead to reduction in bogus and fake ration cards[2]. States collaborating with UID are trying to weed out bogus cards (PTI, 2011). However, there have been some major implementation problems.
Grievance Handling
The project is now at a pan India level. This increases a need to better grievance handling. Problems occur at all levels, from farmers to executive level. The lack of mechanism to track the complaints, this leads to overlooking of the problems by the authority. The Targeted Public Distribution System (TDPS) in its survey stated that Below Poverty Level beneficiaries lodged their complaints with the Gram Panchayat[3] and the Above Poverty Level (APL) beneficiaries to the Janpad Panchayat[4]. These complaints when transferred to the district level, goes unattended due to lack to transparency in tracking complaints (Planning Commission, 2005).
Leakages
Planning commission report of 2005, noted that 75 percent of the food grains allotted from the central depository to some states do not reach the beneficiary. The main reasons for this high leakages being, there are false ration cards, which induces most leakages as these lead to divergence of grains, truck diversion while delivering the grains, fair price shop owners underweight the products while selling (Khera, 2011b).
Many attempts made to address the challenges were like employing GPS devices in transport vehicles and even installed electronic monitoring with existing personnel monitoring (Sequeira, Michael; Jinda, Pratik Rajiv; Gupta, Neeti; Deka, Saumer, 2011). However, it did not fetch any result because it still did not solve the problem of bogus and fraud ration card. Moreover, UIDAI also does not address this problem. This puts UID’s agenda into question. The second aim of UID was to provide a system where delivery system of subsidies could be streamlined and increase beneficiaries.
Liability
The Targeted Public Distribution System should exhibit higher level of accountability. The subsidies have not been delivered to the beneficiaries and there is no way of tracking the remitted benefits. Even though checks are carried out to ensure that the value chain could be more effective but it lacks accountability as tracking back the checkpoints about the approvals becomes difficult to establish. In addition, the delay caused due to the transporting and collection methods creates a huge transit loss. The transit loss is shown mostly as a camouflage to loading and unloading the food grains (Programme Evaluation Organisation and Planning Commission, 2005). Even after the introduction of UID, these problems could not be resolved, as still a huge amount of transit loss is recorded.
Inadvertent Heirs
The Below and Above Poverty Level policies of India has serious flaws while classifying criteria of the family. Many of the APL families are still listed as the BPL families. According to TPDS report, 54% of the BPL families have been mistakenly omitted. This inclusion and exclusion error would not be rectified even by the UID policy. Therefore, to realise the full potential of the UID policy the government needs to update those policies and their credential checks. This would minimise the divergence to the non-deserving people (GOI, 2011e).
Unempirical Stowing
The government has implemented guidelines to ensure the safety of the food grains. However, there are no checks to validate the execution of the guidelines. These have led to rot the perishable goods in holding and poor planning, resulting in huge governmental loss. In financial year 2008-09, Food Subsidy Budget Brief, Accountability Initiative recorded a loss of $2 billion due to unhygienic storage conditions. This problem arises at various levels of storage, but UID is incapable of handling the issue.
Evaluation Findings
There are problems, which have been in existence for a long time. However, it could be believed that over time with the use of databases, communication channels, and biometric system the leakages could be minimised. To minimise these leakages certain issues needs to be handled. Firstly, the benefactors need to be made aware of the usefulness and benefits of the UID policy. The lack of cognizance to them would lead to major implementation flaws. Secondly, the biometric system needs specific technology and needs electricity connection for it to work. However, Combustion, Gasification, and Propulsion Laboratory of India in 2009 noted that 400 million citizens do not have access to electricity. This makes the UID policy non-executable.
The other issue could be due to voluntary nature of UID policy, reach to all the recipients may not be possible. Moreover, insufficient collaborations with small groups and ministries would not let them fetch the main target. Therefore, there is a need for UIDAI to collaborate with higher departments to increase TPDS and free flow of information (Kapur & Chowdhury, 2011). Moreover, with the help of Innovative bypassing methods, the system would be less prone to manipulation. This system could also help in creating new ways to cater larger population faster.
Conclusion
Over the past two decades, there have been many financial reforms, which have empowered citizens. However, significant portions of Indian villagers were deprived of all the benefits, as they were incapacitated to access them. However, with the introduction of the UID system, if linked with the banking system then the micropayments could become more affordable and accessible.
The UID policy relies too much on other agencies for it to work. There can be adoption risks, as it could face long-term delays, as citizens who have good service networks will be enrolled easily. However, population with limited or no access will be harder ID. Moreover, UID requires political support from all the state government in order for it to work on PAN India level. Even if, this works still there exists a risk of de-duplication in the database.
This also exposes the risk of use of technology as it is the first time in the world, such a large biometric data is been collected. Handling the sensitive information and maintaining its quality could pose to be a big threat and challenge. Even if all the above problems could be tackled, there remains a substantial risk of containing its own agenda. The agenda of UID is long-term and keeping it on track would be the foundation whether or not this policy would work.
The long-term agenda could be achieved if the UIDAI collaborates with major CSO’s, Municipal Corporations of different states and other organisations who directly delivers services to the citizens. There is a need to increase awareness about the UID program and its implementation benefits. Moreover, the need of the hour is to make the data collected more reliable and easily accessible remotely everywhere, securely.
References
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List of Abbreviations
CFC – Certified Filing Centres
CIDR – Central Identities Data Repository
CIN – Corporate Identity Number
DIN – Director Identification Number
G2B – Government-to-Business
G2C – Government-to-Consumer
GDP – Gross Domestic Product
ID – Identification
IT – Information Technology
KYC – Know Your Customer
MoU – Memorandum of Understanding
NGO – Non-Government Organisation
NPR – National Population Register
PDC – Public Distribution Channel
UID – Unique Identification Number
UIDAI – Unique Identification Authority of India
USA – United States of America
[1]Unique Identification Authority of India | Planning Commission | Government of India | 3rd Floor, Tower II, Jeevan Bharati Building, Connaught Circus, New Delhi – 110001
[2]“A ration card is used to avail subsidized food and fuel (cooking gas). This document provides identity and a way to be connected to the government”.
[3] “A Gram Panchayat is a local self-government institution at the village or small town level in India.”
[4] “Janpad Panchayat is the third tier of the Panchayati Raj system. It is an elected body.”
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