We will get a National ID Card Again!!

The move to invite the Infosys Co-Chairman Mr. Nandan Nilekani to take charge as Chairperson of the Unique Identification Authority of India, in the rank of Cabinet Minister is indeed a very promising move and augurs well for the future of this nation.

Now, this is certainly not the first time that we have set out on the task of issuing a National Identity Card, but its certainly the first time that we seem to be involving the right people to get the task done.

This is certainly a huge challenge and making it a reality will certainly require a lot of conviction and drive.

The possibilities, once this is a success are innumerable, from improved security, better controlling and tracking of financial transactions, control over black money, better and more effective rollout of subsidies by reducing overhead and leakage to name a few. In general it will give the government the ability to link actions to consequences. This is a necessity in a huge country like ours that can otherwise go berserk.

But there are several issues like authentication, validation, duplication and roll out to such a huge population.

Today there are several solutions that technology offers to solve some of these problems. The use of biometrics - fingerprints, retina scans etc can ensure that we avoid some of these issues.

The other issue is Bureaucracy. To get anything in our country from a Ration card to a passport or anything that is a necessity, will mean having to deal with all the babu's enroute. We have to find an alternate route to this until a basic level of integrity gets ingrained within our social sensibilities. We should consider having a public-private partnership, where in the private partner would be responsible for the actual rollout, biometrics etc. The database itself can be maintained by the government for obvious security reasons. The idea is to somehow solve this problem, however that may be.

The other issue is the type of rollout. We seem to have been obsessed, previously, with issuing physical cards with chips that hold all the information. The problem I have with this is with the cost of implementation this will entail and the risk to security.

a) Supplying physical cards with chips are costly.

b) People tend to lose things. And every loss will mean replacing the card, which will translate to additional costs and overheads.

c) Handing over cards with chips provides a window for a security breach.

We do not need cards. People just need to know the number that will identify them. They can chose to memorize it, write it down or use any method they may deem fit.

Challenges are plenty, but under Mr Nandan Nilekani's leadership, this is a success story thats waiting to be scripted.

Jai ho!