One of the biggest challenges that the Indian governments face is ‘Effective Delivery System’. In fact Govt. started the UIDAI project under Nandan Nilekani to issue a unique identity number called Aadhaar. It is not a card, but database of an individual based on a unique identity number. The idea being that a unique number will help individuals provide unique identity which ultimately will help an individual claim what are his RIGHTS, i.e. not only the benefits under various govt. schemes, but, say, even having a bank account (many Indians are not able to open a bank account as they do not have necessary documents to open one, and hence can never avail credit).
We reproduce a FAQ of Aadhaar from UIDAI’s website.
| WHAT AADHAAR IS | WHAT AADHAAR ISN’T |
| § A number(1 2 Digits) | § Another Card |
| § For every individual, including infants | § One per family |
| § Enables identification, and is for every resident | § Establishes citizenship and is only for indians |
| § Wll collect demographic and biometric information to establish uniqueness of individual |
§ YMII collect profiling information such as caste, religion, language |
| § Voluntary | § Mandatory |
| § For every resident, irrespective of existing documentation |
§ Only for individuals who possess identification documents |
| § Each individual will be given a single unique ID number | § Individual can obtain muftiple AADHAARs |
| § UIDAI will enable a universal identity infrastructure that any ID based application like ration card, passport etc. can use | § AADHAARs will replace all other IDs |
| § UIDAI will give a “Yes” or “No” response for any identification authentication queries | § UIDAI information will be accessible to public and private agencies |
However one of the basic problem still continues that how does one ensure that who all will be eligible for getting benefits from the government. While the Adhar number may give one an identity, however now question remains how Govt. will ensure that persons who are eligible are identified. This has been the basic problem with all the BPL lists that it contains people who should not be there and often does not contain persons who should be there.
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