Dussehra celebration is quite symbolic of the killing, the genocide culture as the victims do celebrate their mass destruction.Dussehra is branded as cultural festival. What culture did we opt for?Durga Puja innovated to celebrate the mass killings of asuras who were the kings in aborigin India.Human sacrifice was quite in vogue. No one else, but the first citizen of the secular democratic republic India, the President took over the role of the priest breaking the protocol.
What to celebrate? Just see,the Finance Ministry is hopeful of raising Rs 12,000-13,000 crore from stake sale in the public sector undertakings (PSUs) by December-end which could help the government to rein in fiscal deficit to around 5.3 per cent of the GDP in 2012-13. The government today approved a Rs 3,150 crore package for development of backward regions in Bihar, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.Concerned over difficult economic situation, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said the country cannot afford to make more mistakes and made a case for accelerating reforms to promote growth and contain fiscal deficit. Faced with difficult government finances, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday asked cash-rich 25 central public sector enterprises to invest their surplus fund of Rs. 2.5 lakh crore to reignite economic growth.
Indian Holocaust My Father`s Life and Time, Chapter: Nine Hundred Seventeen
Palash Biswas
Mobile: 919903717833
Skype ID: palash.biswas44
Email: palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
Biometric digital citizenship is meant for exclusion and economic ethnic cleansing.Sovereignty of citizen and his privacy being handed over to corporate interest. Your finger print may be used against you by the governement as well as by private parties with vested interest.In India, a massive effort is underway to collect biometric identity information for each of the country's 1.2 billion people. The incredible plan, dubbed the "mother of all e-governance projects" by the Economic Times, has stirred controversy in India and beyond, raising serious concerns about the privacy and security of individuals' personal data. The UID program is administered by the Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI), an executive body created to oversee the issuance of unique ID numbers for the stated purpose of facilitating access to benefits and services. At the helm of UID is Nandan Nilekani, a billionaire who made his fortune in the tech industry before ascending to his current role as chairman of the UIDAI. We have been warning the countrymen from the beginning.But the government of India made the survellience tool linked to direct subsidy all on the name of inclusion.India is shaking up the way it gets billions of welfare dollars to the poor with a plan that could one day reshape the economy and tackle graft keeping millions in poverty, but in one small town a pilot of the new system is proving unpopular.The pilot project in Beelaheri, a village of 2,000 people some 130 km (81 miles) southwest of Delhi, replaces kerosene subsidies with cash rebates and has been running since December. It has massively lowered demand for the subsidized fuel, which weighs on government finances.But teething problems are immediately visible. Hundreds of new Aadhaar ID cards are strewn in messy piles on the counter of a small tea-shop on the edge of the village. Locals drift in and rifle through the cards, looking for their own.
Your fingerprints have been handed over to corporate India! But what you got, is not the authentic card at all.Elated to be one of the "fortunate" few to have received the 12-digit Aadhaar number? Call us a spoilsport but it isn't of much use. The glossy strip of paper is certainly not "the card" that everyone has been talking about for nearly five years. As of now, the UID lies as the victim of flawed policy. Those who had their fingerprints taken and retinas scanned a year ago are clueless about what happens next. Those who missed the first round don't know when they will get a second chance. A resignation threat by UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani made prime minister Manmohan Singh step up to end feud between UIDAI and NPR. The Aadhaar project ran into trouble when the Parliament Standing Committee said the scheme had "nod clarity of purpose" and is "directionless". Then it made sense to tag it with NPR which already had the required legislative support.The execution is a huge challenge considering the upside down character of the Aadhaar project. After being merged with NPR, the whole thing becomes all the more cumbersome for the lay resident, who doesn't have any background information of the two now-linked projects.
Nearly 240 million people have been registered for issuing Aadhaar cards bearing the unique 12-digit identification number given to residents of India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Saturday. Over 600 million, or about half of the country, will receive the card by 2014.What about the other half?What would be their plight without having the card? What does it mean? Exclusion and excommunication all the way round!Congress chief Sonia Gandhi handed over the 21st crore (210 million) Aadhaar card to Bali Devi, a resident of Purawar village of Udaipur district. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), administers the Aadhaar card, bearing the unique number.
Bengal is not among the 19 states where the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) directly issues the Aadhaar numbers. If you live in this state, your UID number has to be ratified by the Census Directorate before it is embossed on a Resident Identity Card (RIC). That's at least two years away.
In states like Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, private vendors are being appointed by the UIDAI to do the job.
Our people were branded as demons of various kinds as dasyu, danav, datya, rakshash,asur , vanar and so on.It justified the killing.Dussehra celebration is quite symbolic of the killing, the genocide culture as the victims do celebrate their mass destruction.Dussehra is branded as cultural festival. What culture did we opt for?Durga Puja innovated to celebrate the mass killings of asuras who were the kings in aborigin India.Human sacrifice was quite in vogue. No one else, but the first citizen of the secular democratic republic India, the President took over the role of the priest breaking the protocol. No wonder,Giant effigies of demon king Ravana along with his brother Kumbhkarana and son Meghnad went up in flames today as country celebrated Dussehra symbolising the triumph of good over evil.In the national capital, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Vice President Hamid Ansari were among a large number of dignitaries who watched the evil going up in smoke at the Parade Ground and Subhash Maidan near the historic Red Fort.The President, the Vice-President, the Prime Minister and a host of leaders had greeted the people on the joyous occasion hoping the festival would usher in peace, prosperity and happiness for all.
What to celebrate? Just see,the Finance Ministry is hopeful of raising Rs 12,000-13,000 crore from stake sale in the public sector undertakings (PSUs) by December-end which could help the government to rein in fiscal deficit to around 5.3 per cent of the GDP in 2012-13. The government today approved a Rs 3,150 crore package for development of backward regions in Bihar, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. The finance ministry will pencil in fiscal deficit at 5.3 per cent of GDP for this year, improving to 3 per cent by 2016-17, in its soon-to-be-unveiled fiscal reforms blueprint, numbers it hopes will stave off a threatened ratings downgrade and shore up its fiscal credibility.
Faced with difficult government finances, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday asked cash-rich 25 central public sector enterprises to invest their surplus fund of Rs. 2.5 lakh crore to reignite economic growth.
At a meeting convened by Singh and attended by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, the top PSUs were given a stern message that either they invest their huge surplus or pay it back as special dividend to the exchequer.
"Investing such cash surplus would help in re-igniting the growth impulses that are present in the economy," Singh was quoted in a statement issued after the meeting from the Prime Minister's Office said.
Concerned over difficult economic situation, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said the country cannot afford to make more mistakes and made a case for accelerating reforms to promote growth and contain fiscal deficit.
"We do face difficult situation today and I think what is important that we do not make any more mistakes... we (need to) quickly get back to the path of fiscal consolidation," he said at a function to release a book titled 'Accidental India' written by Shankkar Aiyar.
"Every aspect of India's economic life requires reform," he said.
"I am not deterred, I am not surprised (to opposition to reforms) ... Only way forward is reform. Yes, we can discuss what reforms are necessary, what are unnecessary. What reforms are priority and what reforms are not," he said.
Referring to the government's recent decision to allow cash transfer of subsidies by using Aadhaar platform, Chidambaram said, "by introduction of cash transfer, there will be huge savings in subsidies. Falsification, duplication, leakages will come down".
He said the pilot projects in cash transfer have shown results of 40-90 per cent savings.
"If we do cash transfer of subsidies, to start with scholarship, education loan, move on to LPG subsidies, kerosene subsidies, finally the fertiliser subsidies, I believe there is enormous scope for savings in our subsidy bill. And that could be one area to reform," he said.
The government on Thursday approved 10 percent stake sale in the iron ore mining major NMDC that could fetch the exchequer over Rs 7,000 crore.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has cleared sale of about 39 crore equity of NMDC of face value of Rs 1 each through the Offer for Sale (OFS) route, an official release said.
At present, the government holds 90 percent stake in the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC).As of March 31, 2012, the paid up equity capital of NMDC stood at Rs 396.47 crore.Post disinvestment through the OFS (auction) method, the government holding in the Navratna entity will come down to 80 percent.Shares of the NMDC closed at Rs 184.40 apiece, down 0.81 percent on the BSE today. At the current market price, the proceedings would fetch around Rs 7,000 crore.
NMDC, under administrative control of the Ministry of Steel, is primarily engaged in the business of iron ore mining.But it is also expanding its activities towards production of steel and other value added products. It is India's largest producer of iron ore, operating two mining complexes in Chhattisgarh and one in Karnataka.
Although the government had earlier proposed stake sale in NMDC, it postponed the decision because of poor market conditions.
In a stern message, government asked central PSUs to invest their surplus cash pile of Rs.2.5 lakh crore in their growth plans or pay it back as a special dividend to the exchequer.
"Central public sector enterprises have large investible surpluses. In fact, there are more than Rs.2.50 lakh crore investible surpluses with them. The government would like them to grow and invest in their development plan...
"If the PSUs do not deploy the investible surpluses in their own growth and expansion, that money should not lie idle and it must be paid back to the government by way of special dividend," Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Minister Praful Patel said.
He was briefing reporters about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's meeting with heads of 25 PSUs, including the cash-rich ONGC, Coal India, BHEL, NTPC, SAIL, NMDC.
Patel said a committee of secretaries will be set up to look into the issues of PSUs, like autonomy and regulatory clearances, besides investment of surplus funds. It will be headed by Cabinet Secretary Ajit Kumar Seth.
The meeting comes in the wake of the government finding it hard to meet the fiscal deficit target of 5.1 per cent of the GDP for the current fiscal.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram, who was present in the meeting, "was very categorical and I fully endorsed that- either you (PSUs) use that money for your growth and development in a time-bound manner or give back to the government by way of special dividend," Patel said.
Patel said the Prime Minister has understood CPSEs' issues, and the government will work with them even more closely to see that they are able to overcome difficulties.
He added that they should be able to take quick decisions, be nimble footed and should have aggressive plans for growth.
"Prime Minister has also stated categorically that he would be meeting the CPSEs every six months to understand and resolve their issues in a time-bound manner," Patel said.
On disinvestment in state-owned companies, he said there was no specific discussion as it is an ongoing exercise.
"The issue of divesting (shares) of certain CPSEs is an ongoing exercise, while there was no specific discussion on any particular CPSE divestment, the whole issue was on a larger platform," he added.
The government has set a target of garnering Rs.30,000 crore by divesting its stake in various PSUs including NMDC, MMTC and Power Grid Corp.
"We will try our best to see that this target is met," Patel said.
"CPSEs submitted that multilateral checks and balances in case of CPSEs are coming in the way of decision making and in turn resulting into sub-optimal performance," said U D Choubey, Director General, SCOPE.
Patel said, "Many of the CPSEs had the issues, which are larger issues of environment and other regulatory clearances, including oil subsidies and these issues will be addressed."
During 2010-11, 248 CPSEs touched an all time high investment of more than Rs.6.66 lakh crore.
Total turnover of all PSUs went up by 18.3 per cent to Rs.14.7 lakh crore in the 2010-11 fiscal.
Market capitalisation of 45 listed CPSEs was about Rs.15.6 lakh crore, which constituted about 22 per cent of total market capitalisation of the BSE as on March 31, 2011.
Coal India had cash balance of Rs.58,202 crore in 2011-12, while NMDC had Rs.20,264 crore, NTPC (Rs.16,146 crore) and SAIL (Rs.6,415 crore).
Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/india-psu-exchequer-manmohan-singh-investment-special-dividend/1/225955.html
The government plans to raise Rs 30,000 crore from disinvestment during the current financial year. However, it has not been able to come out with any public issue during the first six months of the fiscal.
Due to uncertain market conditions, the government in the last fiscal could raise only Rs 14,000 crore from disinvestment against the target of Rs 40,000 crore.
The CCEA has also given authorisation in favour of EGoM to change the method of disinvestment from the OFS method, if the same is required subsequently due to market conditions or due to change in SEBI Rules and Regulations, etc.
Besides, floor price, number of tranches, basis of allotment and number of shares to be allotted in each of the tranches will be decided by the EGoM, it said.
The EGoM may also accept or cancel the offer, if there is not enough demand at or above the floor price; in case of over-subscription in one or more tranches, the EGoM can decide whether the over-subscribed amount is to be retained subject to the overall disinvestment of 10 percent, it said.
The statement said allotment of additional shares to eligible and willing employees can be offered at a discount of 5 percent to the issue or discovered (lowest cut off) price up to a maximum of 0.50 percent of the paid up equity capital subsequent to completion of the transaction under OFS.
The method and procedure of allotment of shares to the employees will be worked out in consultations with merchant Bankers or Advisors to the issue, it said.
Chidambaram said it is not always easy to take a right decision in India and any idea in India will be shot down by some "perpetual pessimist".
"...I hope the same fate does not fall to my proposal for a National investment Board (NIB)."
NIB, as proposed by Chidambaram, would be an overarching body chaired by the Prime Minister to clear to large infrastructure projects.
Finance ministry officials are working overtime to ensure that the widely anticipated fiscal slippage this year is minimal and not much beyond the budgeted 5.1 per cent, which they say could go a long way in satisfying international ratings agencies that have threatened a downgrade of India's sovereign rating to junk status.It has already asked other ministries to cut non-Plan expenditure by 10 per cent and is now looking for similar savings in Plan expenditure by weeding out small schemes and pressing for focused fund-utilisation strategies.
A 10 per cent expenditure cut, it hopes, could save the government at least Rs 75,000 crore, after meeting expenses towards interest payments, other contractual obligations, and defence spending.
Even though the government is yet to make any significant progress on the disinvestment front so far this year, finance ministry officials believe they can achieve the Rs 30,000-crore target for the year. Confident that the ingredients are in place for an aggressive push to disinvestment, the ministry hopes to raise Rs 12,000-14,000 crore during this quarter itself and is trying to lean on the steel ministry to facilitate stake sale in state-run blue-chip firms such as NMDCBSE -0.67 % and SAILBSE -0.37 %.
"A new plan is in the works... The government is very serious," a senior finance ministry official told ET.
The official said Finance Minister P Chidambaram, who has promised a 'credible and feasible path of fiscal correction', was personally fine-tuning the proposed fiscal framework for the next five years that will be presented in the forthcoming winter session of Parliament.
Having forced through an increase in diesel prices to help reduce subsidies, the finance ministry is now focusing on a three-pronged strategy comprising major expenditure cuts, aggressive disinvestment, and large receipts from the sale of telecom spectrum to achieve the fiscal numbers.
"We are hopeful that disinvestment will pick up and about Rs 12,000-Rs 13,000 crore will come in by December. For the full fiscal we expect to raise Rs 30,000 crore," Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) Secretary Arvind Mayaram told PTI in an interview.
Finance Ministry officials are engaging in hectic parleys with the PSUs to speed up the process so that the disinvestments can take place in the December and March quarters.
The Department of Disinvestment (DoD), the modal department for conducting PSU stake sale, has already secured Cabinet approval for stake sale in four companies -- Oil India, MMTC, Hindustan Copper and Nalco-- which could fetch about Rs 15,000 crore to the exchequer.
"We have target a fiscal deficit at 5.3 per cent for the current fiscal. We aim to bring it down to 3 per cent by 2016-17," Mayaram said, ruling out any further borrowing by the government.
"We will control the deficit by reducing our expenditure and realising funds from PSU disinvestment," he said.
Although the government had pegged fiscal deficit for the current financial year at 5.1 per cent in the budget, it will not be able to achieve the target in view of rising subsidy bill and lower buoyancy in tax collection.
With nearly seven months of the fiscal about to get over, the government is yet to start its disinvestment programme, through which it aims to raise Rs 30,000 crore in 2012-13.
Under the Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF), which was approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), Rs 1,500 crore will provided to Bihar as Special Plan Assistance.
Similarly Additional Central Assistance of Rs 1,400 crore will be provided for drought mitigation strategies in Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, an official statement said here.
The CCEA also approved Rs 250 crore for Special Plan for development of Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput (KBK) districts of Odisha.
The BRGF, which aims to catalyse development in backward areas, was approved by the CCEA in August, 2006.
In its present form, the BRGF has two components, namely, district component covering 272 backward districts in 27 states and state component which includes Special Plan for Bihar, West Bengal, KBK districts, Integrated Action Plan (IAP) for selected tribal and backward districts and Bundelkhand Package.
The implementation of the programmes is being undertaken by the state governments, which aim to accelerate socio-economic development in these areas.
The backward areas of the states covered under the state component of BRGF will benefit all the 38 districts of Bihar, eight districts of the KBK region and 13 districts of Bundelkhand region.
These programmes are continuing programmes and were under implementation during the Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-12).
Putting India's technological prowess to work to bring the entire 1.2 billion population within the reach of government, the widely feted unique identity (UID) project set up by InfosysBSE -0.31 % co-founder Na n dan Nilekani two years ago has so far scanned the irises of 210 million people into a biometric database.
Now, in a more ambitious version of programmes that have slashed poverty in Brazil and Mexico, the government has begun to use the UID database, known as Aadhaar, to make direct cash transfers to the poor, in an attempt to cut out frauds who siphon billions of dollars from welfare schemes.
"We can ensure that the money goes to the correct person and the role of middleman is ended with direct transfer of benefits to the needy," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told a crowd of thousands in the Rajasthani town of Dudu on Oct. 20, as he launched the programme, accompanied by the president of his Congress party, Sonia Gandhi.
Following a slew of reforms aimed at jolting Asia's third largest economy from a deep slump, the plan could over medium term bring some order to India's troublesome fiscal deficit by plugging leakages of subsidized grain, fuel and fertilizer.
Two years ago, a McKinsey report estimated such an electronic platform for government payments to households would save up to $18 billion annually - enough to wipe out one-sixth of a fiscal deficit that could hit 6 percent of GDP this fiscal year.
In the next year alone, the government plans to transfer the wages for over 50 million workers in a rural job scheme, along with pensions for 20 million senior citizens and about 5 million education scholarships and some fuel subsidies directly to bank accounts linked with the Aadhaar identity number.
But in Beelaheri, a small village in the Rajasthani region of Kotkasim where the kerosene pilot began last year, hundreds of bank accounts have been set up without referencing the UID database, as the government pushes ahead with the politically rewarding cash transfers before readying Aadhar to identify the correct beneficiaries.
Critics warn good intentions are already being undermined by the hurry ahead of a national election due in 2014 and by vested interests, including bureaucrats and politicians in states, who stand to lose discretion over distributing funds.
The government is aiming for about two trillion rupees ($37.22 billion) of cash transfers under different schemes by March 2014 even if the distribution of the ID numbers is incomplete, according to several media reports.
By lowering costs, Aadhaar could make a planned food subsidy programme that is a pet project of the left-leaning Sonia Gandhi easier to finance, for example.
The Congress party is banking on that programe to help it win a third consecutive term, despite voter anger at graft.
As of now, the UID lies as the victim of flawed policy. Those who had their fingerprints taken and retinas scanned a year ago are clueless about what happens next. Those who missed the first round don't know when they will get a second chance.
"The Aadhaar number will be given out only after biographic, demographic and biometric data are collected and assembled at bona fide camps organised under the Census directorate's National Population Register (NPR) scheme," said Dipak Ghosh, director of Census Operations, Bengal.
Subrata Das, an HR executive with a private firm, proudly flaunted the glossy Aadhaar card when he got it a few days ago. Now, he is rather crestfallen. "We were not told that the document to be issued by UIDAI is not sacrosanct even though it has the Planning Commission's sanction," he said. Neither is he aware that the much-hyped Aadhaar swipe-card project has been shelved and it's the RIC (to be issued to those over 18 years), that is the real thing. Indrajit Chowdhury, who lives in Alipore but got his UID from Bangalore, is equally perplexed. "Are my card and the 12-digit number valid?" he wondered.
"Only after it is cross-checked at a National Population Register (NPR) camp. Data collected in the NPR will be screened for de-duplication by the UIDAI," said Ghosh. He admitted that direct issuance of numbers by UIDAI is faster than the census directorate. So far, not a single UID number has been handed out by the directorate. Bengal is still in the first round of biometrics, where those enlisted during enumeration for the Census 2011 were included. It will be some time before Round 2 is completed. And some more time for the data to be uploaded to create RICs.
Out of 141 wards in Kolkata, 101 have been covered for biometric camps. Officials of the census department and Kolkata Municipal Corporation are visiting households, seeking demographic and biographic data in a form that doubles up as the intimation for attending a biometric camp held in ward offices, health clinics and even local clubs. These camps are held for three days, where those not included in the Census data can enrol, and wait to be covered in the second round early next year. The first round is almost over in Howrah. Biometrics (photograph, fingerprints and iris mapping) has been introduced in all Bengal districts, except Bankura, Purulia and North Dinajpur.
The confusion over UID is, however, no reason to skip the biometric camps. The Aadhaar number is compulsory for every citizen and those who dodge it can be fined Rs 1,000 at least. "But the number doesn't confer any citizenship rights," said Ghosh. It's this barrier that prevents the poor from accessing the services. So far, the number is limited to opening bank accounts or getting a driver's licence.
OB van politics, passing laws won't solve corruption, we need to fix the system: Nandan Nilekani
Politics news, Updated Oct 23, 2012 at 06:03pm IST
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) chairman Nandan Nilekani, in an indirect attack at India Against Corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal, has said laws like the Lokpal Bill cannot help in solving the problem of corruption in India. Speaking to CNN-IBN Deputy Editor Sagarika Ghose, Nilekani said, "I think it is not just laws, you need something by which land titling is improved, you need something by which land registration is improved, you need something by which land record reflects actual ownership. You need to have a way of mapping who owns what land."
He also said that the Aadhaar number is a step forward in the direction of solving the problem of corruption. Following is the full transcript of Sagarika Ghose's interview with Nandan Nilekani:
Sagarika Ghose: Hello and welcome to a Face The Nation special. Last weekend the government launched the Aadhaar enable service delivery system. This means integrating the Aadhaar numbers with delivery of government services, integrating the Aadhaar numbers with direct cash transfers to the poor. The government says this will drastically cut corruption, but others say that this is a pre-election gimmick by the UPA. Who better to explain Aadhaar enable service delivery system than Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, Nandan Nilekani. Thanks so much for joining us.
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Nandan Nilekani: Thanks Sagarika.
Sagarika Ghose: How will the system actually work - Integrating the Aadhaar number with delivery of government services, integrating the Aadhaar number with direct cash transfers to the poor.
Nandan Nilekani: Well you know the Aadhaar number gives a unique identity and we are doing that so far to 21 crore people and that's an online ID using biometric technology. Now, to that ID you can now attach a bank account. And a government programme like a pension programme or a scholarship can just credit money electronically to the bank account using the Aadhaar number as the address. The person then can go and withdraw the money anywhere from a business correspondent. That's how it will work for cash transfer. The same concept can be done for the PDS, for example, if somebody has a rice account the person can go to the Aadhaar number to authenticate before claiming the rice in the PDS outlet. So both for cash and in kind, Aadhaar enables a better delivery and accurate beneficiary, identification and authentication.
Sagarika Ghose: But Nandan how has the Aadhaar number worked until now? It's been two years since the Aadhaar process started. As you said 20 crore Aadhaar numbers have been given out, 21 crore was the number that was given by the Prime Minister just last weekend. But we find that many government department we not accepting the Aadhaar number. The Reserve Bank of India has gone on record saying that Aadhaar number is not enough to open a bank account. So, is there a problem with government departments accepting the Aadhaar number? And if it's not actually delivering benefits then why should people go for an Aadhaar number?
Nandan Nilekani: I think it is a process, I think we will see more and more proclamations from different departments, over the time it will become the de facto proof of identity and address for many, many schemes, including for bank accounts, mobile connections, other documents. So I think you have to see it as a major transition. First you require enough people to have the number, which we now have reached 21 crore, 210 million, one out five Indians has an Aadhaar number. By next year one out of three will have an Aadhaar number, by yeat after that one out of two will have an Aadhaar number. So that's quite a serious penetration and as It becomes more and more gateway, it's already a gateway. For example, you can get an LPG connection with an Aadhaar number, it's an ID proof of address for SEBI transactions, you can use it for insurance policies, railways it's an ID. So you know over time as we make it more and more…
Sagarika Ghose: But it's an ongoing process, we're not there yet.
Nandan Nilekani: Yeah
Sagarika Ghose: Don't you think you need to spread more awareness in the government departments on the Aadhaar number?
Nandan Nilekani: Which we are doing. I think the fact that we had this major launch last week in the presence of the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, and Finance Minister P Chidambaram. I think shows the enormous political and government …
Sagarika Ghose: And what about penalties? Will the government departments be penalised if they don't honour the Aadhaar number?
Nandan Nilekani: Penalise the government department?
Sagarika Ghose: Yes, penalise those who don't honour the Aadhaar number.
Nandan Nilekani: Well I think it is a process because we have to work with different departments, we have to get them to bring out regulations that this is sufficient. So, this is a very major change in the way we do things. I think the fact is that we have used it for cash transfers, at this function we showed examples of old age pension system, pensions in Tripura, MNREGA payments in Jharkhand, you know scholarships and pension in Maharashtra, PDS in Andhra, LPG cash transfers in Mysore. It shows the breadth and diversity of its application.
Sagarika Ghose: You know, on the cash transfer question, there are many who oppose the direct cash transfer, they feel the system more suited to India is the PDS, is the Public Distribution System, cash transfer will not work in a country like India where many don't have bank account where you'll get transfers of money and fitter it away into alcoholism, it will not help the families. The real poor need the PDS, they don't need cash transfer.
Nandan Nilekani: Well I think we have to actually dissect this thing, about 150,000 crores of payments today in India already happen in the form of cash, for example scholarships, pensions, NREGA payments, there is janani suraksha yojna which encourages women to come in for delivery at a PHC and so forth. One part of that is streamlining those electronic benefits and making them much more electronic and deliver directly. So that's a straight thing, it's a cash only but done in a much better way. Then we have direct subsidies on fuel for example LPG and kerosene, as well as fertilisers. There again I think by and large people are fine with cash transfer so that the product goes at market price and people get cash in their account equal to the difference of the price. I think the issue is where there is a debate on food. I think our system allows you to use it for food also. In fact as I was giving the example of what we are doing in Andhra Pradesh, the PDS system using Aadhaar to authenticate the food. So as a platform it is neutral whether it is used for cash or food.
Sagarika Ghose: Aadhaar is neutral whether it is used for cash or food?
Nandan Nilekani: Correct.
Sagarika Ghose: But in terms of cash, obviously the people who will benefit those who have bank accounts. What about people who don't have bank account? How will they benefit?
Nandan Nilekani: Aadhaar first of all allows you to open a bank account, very soon it will be an electronic opening of a bank account. Aadhaar becomes the address by which you put the money into the bank account and using Aadhaar enabled micro-ATMs business correspondents make it easier to withdraw money. All this infrastructure will make banking more accessible. So they go hand in hand.
Sagarika Ghose: So the series of process go hand in hand and they are based on the Aadhar number.
Nandan Nilekani: Yes.
Sagarika Ghose: Let me just read out to you the views of Swaminathan Aiyar who speaks about the integration of the Aadhaar numbers with cash transfers. He says cash transfers are a good idea but we need to hasten slowly. Scoundrels can still sabotage the cash transfer system. The conditions to identify target and monitor cash transfer are not favourable with almost 70 per cent living in rural areas and 30 per cent illiterate in India. Mobile banking using biometric cards needs 3G broadband, which will take time. Corrupt officials will demand bribes to issue smart cast. They will inevitably be they will be fake cards and ghost cards.
Nandan Nilekani: First of all the ID is a unique ID so we eliminate ghosts and duplicate. Secondly, more than the smart card, the ID is online so I can just use my finger or my eye to authenticate myself. Thirdly, a regular mobile network is good enough for the online connectivity. Fourthly, we plan to work with the banking system to have a range of outlets called as business correspondents who are on the mobile ATMs, who can authenticate and disperse money. So a huge amount of thinking has gone into the architecture which allows people to get an ID, bank account, withdraw money easily and get money for the various schemes.
Sagarika Ghose: But the system is not entirely food proof, as he says. In our country everything can be sabotage, so there are no chances of sabotage as well in this?
Nandan Nilekani: Sagarika, how much does it improve from where we are? You know it is very obvious and all the anecdotal evidence on all the early use of Aadhaar has shown significant benefits in reducing ghosts and duplicate and reducing savings to the government. So we are already saying that in all the programmes we have launched it. So you're going from a system which has fair amount of leakage, we have enough numbers on that, to a system which is almost, I would say zero leakage.
Sagarika Ghose: Almost zero leakage.
Nandan Nilekani: Yes, don't look for absolute perfection. If you are at X you are going close to 100 per cent, that is the big leap forward.
Sagarika Ghose: This Aadhaar is the government's weapon to fight corruption, given that there is a huge rising anger against the corruption. Is Aadhaar the government's weapon to fight it?
Nandan Nilekani: But I think it is important to understand that it is not just about the corruption dimension. Number one, it is the world's largest social inclusion project. For the first time millions of people will get ID and will get included in society. So it's the world's largest social inclusion project. It will help in making you physical spending more efficient by reducing diversion and fraud. It helps in empowering the person to go anywhere and withdraw their money, choice is important. The consequences of all this helps in reducing corruption. So it is more than… it's not just the negative thing to reduce corruption, it is also a positive empowering thing which has a bi-product also helps in reducing corruption.
Sagarika Ghose: Right, we'll come to the corruption question in just a bit, but I also want to ask you about you know the information of the database, how will you update for example the information on your list because the fact is people will go on from being poor to rich, how will you update your database? Is there an updation problem?
Nandan Nilekani: See, our database is a pure ID database, who is eligible for what is in that respective application. So the previous application says who is eligible for subsidised rice, or wheat or sugar or kerosene. Some of the health application will say what is his health record. So we only provide the ID infrastructure, so those decisions will be in the respective applications.
Sagarika Ghose: Yes, but when people change their addresses, when they move, when they go from being poor to rich, so how will they...
Nandan Nilekani: See, poor to rich is the eligibility criteria which is the part of the application which gives whatever benefits.
Sagarika Ghose: Okay, but what about the change of address?
Nandan Nilekani: That's the big one. So we intent to have a network of update centres where people can go and do the address change. So the address is really the big one from our side. So what we do is provide proof of identity, proof of address.
Sagarika Ghose: Right. And the people who have got the Aadhaar number already in Maharashtra, the first people who got the number when you launched it in 2010, how many benefits have they actually got till now?
Nandan Nilekani: I think it's still getting rolled out, I would not say that everything has happened. But the way to think of this is that first we have a population with large number of people and then we start rolling out applications using those numbers and over time this will become more and more prevalent. And what was launched on Saturday was the next phase where we now use the installed infrastructure of the 210 million, tomorrow 400 million, then 600 million and now building application on top of it which will give them benefits.
Sagarika Ghose: So do you feel, just to come to that corruption question, in order to fight corruption Aadhaar is a more valuable weapon, Aadhaar is a more efficient weapon for the government than simply going after individual cases, going after individual person or individual personality.
Nandan Nilekani: Absolutely, if you want to build a solution at scale you have to do it using this kind incentive aligned technology enabled systems. You can't say every time a PDS guy doesn't get his rice, he calls up somebody and he comes running and sorts it out. That's not the way of doing it. Retail transaction which involves an individual getting the benefits which can be in cash and in kind, reducing hassles for them, empowering them.
Sagarika Ghose: How does the government see it in terms of the architecture of fighting corruption?
Nandan Nilekani: So automatically the corruption is addressed. Let's say today you can only go to one person to get your pension or can go to only one PDS outlet to get rice. Tomorrow if I have this network where I can go to any BC to withdraw my money, or any PDS to get my rice, then automatically the bargaining power shifts to the resident. That's how empowerment happens. You as a costumer can go to this bank, if you don't like it you can go to that bank, you can go to this grocery store, that grocery store. We need to create the same kind of empowerment for the common man. This is what it does, so automatically it will help in reducing corruption.
Sagarika Ghose: Let me give you another quote from R Jagannathan of Firstpost, he says in all areas where UAID has done cash transfers mean every family will get money in the range of Rs 3,000 to Rs 14,000 per annum depending on whether they are identified as BPL or better off. This is nothing but the legalised bribery of the voter. The Congress party is getting ready to harvest votes. Are you rushing through the scheme because elections are around the corner?
Nandan Nilekani: No, I think I can say know that it's been three years since we started this scheme and two years since we launched it. Right from day one we have been saying that this will reach 600 million people or 60 crore by 2014. Right from day one we have said that this will be our platform for transfer of both cash and in kind, and going by that I have received very strong support from day one by the government of India.
Sagarika Ghose: You see the Aadhaar card as reduction in corruption, pilferage and fraud?
Nandan Nilekani: Yes, in the dispersal of the electronic benefits and subsidies. I mean you can't use Aadhaar for solving coal or something but you can use it to solve retail corruption.
Sagarika Ghose: You know given this rage against corruption that exists, what does Aadhaar mean for the fight against corruption?
Nandan Nilekani: I think it means for millions of people, social inclusion, where they become part of the formal society, empowerment for them, and for government also improvement in delivering the system and as a bi-product of this it also mean the resident-state interface gets streamlined and automatically corruption in that interface comes down. That's my point, You don't fix corruption by creating more laws, more inspectors and more punitive measures on bureaucrats. You fix it by changing the underline system so that millions of people get benefits.
Sagarika Ghose: I also want to ask you, when I interviewed you last year, you said that to think that a Lokpal Bill will fight corruption was to drink cool aid, that made a lot of news. Do you still believe that an anti-corruption campaign on Indian Against Corruption that is launching on public naming and shaming individuals, do you still believe that this is not an effective way of fighting corruption?
Nandan Nilekani: Well, let me tell you I am as much for fighting corruption as the next guy. I do believe that we need to fix those things. But I certainly don't believe that by passing a law, putting more punitive penalties on bureaucrats, creating more inspectors is going to solve corruption. That's absolutely the wrong prescription. You may want some of that but we have already done much of that. What you need now is to fundamentally get into the trenches and fix the delivery system. How to make sure that the right people get the right things at the right time with an element of choice, that's re-engineering the delivering system which is far more complex. That is what we do at UIDAI. So I think that's the kind of thing we need to focus on if we need to fight corruption for a large number of people. It's not just Aadhaar but I am saying improving the way you buy things, improving the way you sell things, improving the way you convert money into electronic money reduce unaccounted money, the whole host of thing. But I think it really hard block and tackle thing that is required now.
Sagarika Ghose: It's systemic change, changing the processes, not necessarily targeting the individuals.
Nandan Nilekani: Even if you say that you raise the consciousness of corruption in the system and encourage more honest behaviour, then what? Then you have to fix the system.
Sagarika Ghose: Otherwise you will get more individual who are in the same system and are equally corrupt.
Nandan Nilekani: Lokpal, he'll go around, somebody will call him up and he will solve problem. I mean you can't do it like that. Let's take an example, if you are have an automobile factory and if the cars are of bad quality, then you don't improve the quality by putting more inspectors, you improve quality by looking at manufacturing process and fixing defects. So you have to do it same here. We have to get into the innards of the system and figure out how to make it deliver better.
Sagarika Ghose: It's not only about targeting Robert Vadra for his land deal, it's not only about targeting Nitin Gadkari for his land deals, it's perhaps fixing the land laws. Do you feel it's about changing India's land laws which many feel are absurd?
Nandan Nilekani: No, I think one is not just laws, you need something by which land titling is improved, you need something by which land registration is improved, you need something by which land record reflects actual ownership. You need to have a way of mapping who owns what land. I think that's all nuts and bolts stuff. I mean the notion you know can bring corruption by having bunch of OB vans, I think that's not going to solve the problem.
Sagarika Ghose: Is that how you see Arvind Kejriwal's campaign?
Nandan Nilekani: No, I think there is a lack of appreciation of the long term institutional and systematic changes required to get to where we want.
Sagarika Ghose: Does it worry you that some of the anti-corruption campaign is seen as anti-economic reform? Or liberalisation is seen to bring corruption? Or liberalisation is seen to bring chronic capitalism, corporate are being targeted. Does that worry you that a anti-corruption crusade could take you back to licence raj or inspector raj?
Nandan Nilekani: No, I think we should really understand that if India is going to create employment for millions of young people, it will be done by entrepreneurs. Let's be very clear about it. It's only business, innovation and entrepreneurs who are going to create jobs for everybody. So we need a thriving business and private sector. Having said that, where the private sector interacts with the government in term of natural resources in terms of purchase, buying, in terms of regulation, that interface has to be done in a transparent and a levelled way so that there is no accusation of chronic capitalism. But we certainly need to have a very thriving economy and private sector to create jobs. There's a part of the business which has nothing to do with the government where people compete on market principles, innovate services. And large part of Indian economy has that.
Sagarika Ghose: And there, there is less corruption?
Nandan Nilekani: There it is a market thing, automobile, it's up to Mr Tata or Mr Mahindra to come out of the...
Sagarika Ghose: It's where the private sector deals with the government there is corruption.
Nandan Nilekani: Where government is a buyer, say procurement, where government is a seller say natural resources, mining or etc. or where government is a regulator where say regulation has a huge impact on business performance, so that is what needs to be streamlined. But by and large we absolutely need good, honest entrepreneurs to create jobs. I think we are kidding ourselves if we think jobs for millions of people will be created without entrepreneurs.
Sagarika Ghose: Do you think Arvind Kejriwal is doing the hard work of fighting corruption?
Nandan Nilekani: Absolutely not.
Sagarika Ghose: But you know the fight against corruption has become a dominant discourse, at least among the middle class, there is a huge amount of anger and Arvind Kejriwal and India Against Corruption have tapped into that anger. Now, where do you see this movement going, where do you see Arvind Kejriwal going? Do you see them achieving something productive by this public naming and shaming or do you think it will fitter away because it doesn't have a serious fighting capability against corruption?
Nandan Nilekani: My point is that, the only real challenge is that how do you make it work. How do you fix it, how do you put institutional arrangement in place, how do you have frame of laws and regulations which allows honest business to compete.
Sagarika Ghose: But don't you think this spurs it, this kind of public campaign don't you think it spurs that kind of change?
Nandan Nilekani: But I think it needs a lot more thinking. You know, the solution that say that how do you fix the price of something, we'll ask the people. It's not the solution, what worries me is that people should not be sold something, I don't see the depth of serious thinking of how do you deliver this systems. That's the hard part.
Sagarika Ghose: At the end of the day you feel something like an Aadhaar card is actually going into the nuts and bolts of the system and fixing the relation between the citizen and the state where it really needs to be fixed?
Nandan Nilekani: Absolutely. Aadhaar is just one example, I don't want to talk about Aadhaar, but I think going in and making the hard changes which may involve, technology, regulations, institutional rearrangement, process reengineering, incentive aliened design and in a way that millions of people improve their interaction with the state. That's where the action is.
Sagarika Ghose: Right, so if you want to fight corruption don't just engage in OB van politics, decentralise, hand over power, fix the system, UID, a host of other…
Nandan Nilekani: Build automatic transparency in all things like that.
Sagarika Ghose: Processes at the grass root, processes at all level of the society that really fight the corruption. Nandan Nilekani, thanks so much for joining us.
Nandan Nilekani: Thanks Sagarika.
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/ob-van-politics-passing-laws-wont-solve-corruption-we-need-to-fix-the-system-nandan-nilekani/301737-37-64.html
What the UID conceals
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article839590.eceR. Ramakumar
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The Hindu Fingerprint impression is taken on a digital machine at a special booth set up for the Proof of Concept phase of the Unique Identification project at Patancheru in Medak district, on March 30, 2010. Photo: Nagara Gopal
TOPICS
demographics population and censussocial issue
The UID project has both 'security' and 'developmental' dimensions. The former leads to an invasive state; the latter leaves us with a retreating state.
Is identity the "missing link" in India's efforts to rise as an "inclusive" economic superpower? Can an identity-linked and technology-based solution change the face of governance in India? Given the euphoria around the Unique Identification (UID) project, one is tempted to believe so. However, a careful look at the project would show that the euphoria is just hyperbole; only the politically naïve can afford to ignore the far-reaching implications of this Orwellian project.
One can summarise the criticisms of the UID project under four heads. First, the project would necessarily entail the violation of privacy and civil liberties of people. Second, it remains unclear whether biometric technology — the cornerstone of the project – is capable of the gigantic task of de-duplication. The Unique Identification Authority of India's (UIDAI) "Biometrics Standards Committee" has noted that retaining biometric efficiency for a database of more than one billion persons "has not been adequately analysed" and the problem of fingerprint quality in India "has not been studied in depth". Third, there has been no cost-benefit analysis or feasibility report for the project till now. Finally, the purported benefits of the project in the social sector, such as in the Public Distribution System (PDS), are largely illusive. The problem of duplicate ration cards is often hugely exaggerated. Even so, some States have largely eliminated duplicate ration cards using "lower" technologies like hologram-enabled ration cards.
In this larger context, the UID project has two distinct political dimensions. The first dimension is that the project is fundamentally linked to "national security" concerns rather than "developmental" concerns. In fact, the marketing team of the UIDAI has always been on an overdrive to hush up the security angle, and play up the developmental angle, to render it more appealing.
The first phase of today's UID project was initiated in 1999 by the NDA government in the wake of the Kargil War. Following the reports of the "Kargil Review Committee" in 2000, and a Group of Ministers in 2001, the NDA government decided to compulsorily register all citizens into a "National Population Register" (NPR) and issue a Multi-purpose National Identity Card (MNIC) to each citizen. To ease this process, clauses related to individual privacy in the Citizenship Act of 1955 were weakened through an amendment in 2003. In sum, the ground work for a national ID project was completed by 2003 itself.
The parallels between the UPA's UID and the NDA's MNIC are too evident to be missed, even as the UPA sells UID as a purely "developmental" initiative. The former chief of the Intelligence Bureau, A.K. Doval, almost gave it away recently, when he said that UID, originally, "was intended to wash out the aliens and unauthorised people. But the focus appears to be shifting. Now, it is being projected as more development-oriented, lest it ruffle any feathers".
The potential of the project to unleash a security frenzy is the reason why privacy concerns have to be taken seriously. The government and the UIDAI have made it appear as if the purported, and unsubstantiated, benefits of "good governance" from the project eclipse the concerns regarding privacy and civil liberties. This is where the problem lies. A foundational understanding in the study of individual freedoms, pioneered by scholars like Amartya Sen, is that consequence-independent absolute rights are rather hard to defend. Hence, the demand to trade-off one freedom for another (here, the "invasive loss" of privacy for "development") is an untenable demand. Each freedom, independently, has an instrumental value, and the loss of one freedom undermines the individual's overall capability to expand up on other freedoms. No wonder then that Sen himself has voiced the privacy concern regarding the UID project.
There is a related concern: police and security forces, if allowed access to the biometric database, could extensively use it for regular surveillance and investigative purposes, leading to a number of human rights violations. As Amartya Sen has argued elsewhere, forced disclosure and loss of privacy always entailed "the social costs of the associated programmes of investigation and policing". According to him, "some of these investigations can be particularly nasty, treating each applicant as a potential criminal."
The second dimension of the UID project is the following: it would qualitatively restructure the role of the state in the social sector. Contrary to claims, the UID project is not an instrument to expand India's social security system, for whatever it is worth. Instead, the aim is to keep benefits restricted to the so-called "targeted" sections, ensure targeting with precision and thereby, limit the government's expenditure commitments. None other than the Prime Minister has made this amply clear. Addressing the National Development Council (NDC) on July 24, 2010, he noted: "to reduce our fiscal deficit in the coming years, … we must [be] … reducing the scale of untargeted subsidies. The operationalisation of the Unique Identification Number Scheme … provides an opportunity to target subsidies effectively."
The UIDAI claims that UID would help the government shift from a number of indirect benefits into direct benefits. In reality, such a shift would represent the opposite: a transformation of the role of the state from a direct provider to an indirect provider. For the UIDAI, the UID is a tool of empowerment. In reality, the UID would be an alibi for the state to leave the citizen unmarked in the market for social services. Nowhere is the illustration more telling than in the case of the PDS.
Let me state the argument upfront. The UID project is part of a larger effort to dismantle the PDS in India. The aim is to ensure a back-door entry of food stamps in the place of PDS, and later graduate it to a cash transfer scheme, thereby completing the state's withdrawal from the sphere of food procurement and distribution.
According to the UIDAI, the most important benefit from the UID could be that you could have a "portable" PDS. In other words, you could have a system where you (say, a migrant worker) could buy your PDS quota from anywhere in India. The claim, of course, has a deceptive appeal. One would have to dig deeper to grasp the real intent.
If we take the present fair price shop (FPS) system, each FPS has a specified number of households registered to it. The FPS stores grains only for the registered households. The FPS owner would not know how many migrants, and for what periods, would come in and demand their quota. Hence, for lack of stock, he would turn away migrant workers who demand grains. Hence, the FPS system is incompatible with the UID-linked portability of PDS. There is only one way out: do away with the FPS system, accredit grocery shops to sell grains, allow them to compete with each other and allow the shop owners to get the subsidy reimbursed. This is precisely what food stamps are all about; no FPS, you get food stamps worth an amount, go to any shop and buy grains (on why food stamps are deeply problematic, see Madhura Swaminathan, "Targeted Food Stamps", The Hindu, August 3, 2004).
What is interesting is that everyone, except those enamoured by the UID glitter, appears to know this. On its part, UIDAI officially accepts that food stamps become easier to implement with the UID. So does the Planning Commission, which sees the UID as the fulcrum around which its plans to "reform" the PDS revolve. It turns out that an opposition to the dismantling of PDS, and to food stamps, also involves an opposition to the UID.
On his part, Nandan Nilekani has been showcasing his extraordinarily poor understanding of India's developmental priorities. According to him, "in the Indira years, the slogan was garibi hatao. Then it was roti, kapda, makaan. In the last few years, it was bijli, sadak, pani." However, these slogans are "passé"; the in-thing is the slogan "UID number, bank account, mobile phone." Such an inverted world view, totally divorced from the grim realities of poverty, has prompted critics to call AADHAAR as just NIRAADHAAR!
In conclusion, the UID project is marked by both "security" and "developmental" dimensions. The former leads to an invasive state; the latter leaves us with a retreating state. Either way, the "citizen" is worse off.
(R. Ramakumar is with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.)
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