Re: Unique Identification Number, UIN: Sid Harth
chhotemianinshallah
UP is right on track for UIN: Nilekani
Arvind Singh Bisht, TNN
17 November 2009, 05:38am IST
LUCKNOW: A good news for UP. In spite of its sheer size and enormous
population of around 200 million, the titanic state will be ready to
embark upon the ambitious plan of having `unique identification
number' (UIN) for individuals in the next two years.
This is the conclusive remark of IT wizard, Nandan Nilekani, who is
responsible for the implementation of the UIN project all over the
country in his new avatar as chairman of Unique Identification
Authority of India (UIDAI).
Talking to TOI after a day-long deliberation with top officials here
on Monday, the former Infosys chief said: "I am more than happy by
UP's preparedness and the groundwork already done by it." UP, he said,
was the 12th state being reviewed by him for this purpose and this was
much ahead of others. Bihar, he said, would be taken up for a review
on Tuesday.
As for the plan and strategy for the implementation of the project,
Nilekani said that shortly the UIDAI would develop a protocol for the
UIN. In this scheme of things, he said, key parameters would be
developed for the biometric, data and verification standards for
individuals in the next four months.
Finger prints of all the ten fingers will be necessary for biometric
standard. As for data, the procedure entails the details of date of
birth, name and current and permanent addresses, besides the latest
photographs of the individuals. For verification purpose, the iris
sensitivity test will be mandatory.
Once the protocol is ready, any individual can apply for UID. This can
be done individually or through the help of government offices,
including banks, which will act as registrar for this purpose. The
procedure is simple for this purpose. For instance, somebody wants to
open an account. The bank concerned will send the details of
individuals to UIDAI's data base. The transfer of data will be done
though mobile phone messages.
Based on the analysis of these data, the UIDAI will issue UID to the
applicant. In this no card will be issued, but there will be only UID,
which will be unique to individuals. The UID, according to Nilekani,
can be used by the government or the individuals the way they like to
use it. The UIDAI, he said, has not made any hard and fast rule for
this purpose.
When asked to comment on this, chief secretary Atul Kumar Gupta said:
"The UID will have an extensive use to avoid duplication and check
impersonation." The government, he said, would encourage it and make
its use in various schemes, particularly that of pension for widows,
destitute, disabled, scholarships to students, ration cards for those
living below poverty line (BPL) and making voter identification
cards.
Besides the chief secretary, the meeting was attended on the occasion
by principal secretaries of various departments, including housing,
urban development, rural development, panchayati raj, chief electoral
officer, power corporation and a host of others.
...and I am Sid Harth
bademiyansubhanallah
“Unique ID will enable more effective public delivery”
Karan Thapar of CNN-IBN interviews UIA Chairman Nandan Nilekani in
Devil's Advocate.
Karan Thapar: Hello and welcome to Devil's Advocate. Why do we need a
unique identification number and does the proposal itself make good
sense. That's the key issue I shall explore today with the Chairman of
the Unique Identification Authority, Nandan Nilekani.
Mr Nilekani, let me start with a simple question. It is said that 80
per cent of Indians have Election Commission identity cards, others
have ration cards, some people have BPL cards, others have driving
licence and passports, there are even PAN cards. Why on top of this do
we need a unique identification number?
Nandan Nilekani: We need one single, non-duplicate way of identifying
a person and we need a mechanism by which we can authenticate that
online anywhere because that can have huge benefits and impact on
public services and also on making the poor more inclusive in what is
happening in India today.
Karan Thapar:When you say one online way of identifying a person, am I
right in assuming what makes the unique identification different to
anything else is that in addition to name, age, sex, date of birth and
address, you actually have the individuals biometrics which are unique
to that individual?
Nandan Nilekani: Absolutely. It is a combination of most probably
fingerprints and picture and a biometrics committee will finalise that
but finally that makes it unique. And we will also make sure that
there are no duplicates. That's another important decision.
Karan Thapar:Let's come to the problems that are inherent in this
task. First, the issue of technology. Quite simply, does the
technology exist? I ask because the London School of Economics did an
analysis and survey of a similar project that was being considered by
the British Government and this is the conclusion that they have come
to: “The technology envisioned for this scheme is to a large extent
untested and unreliable. No scheme on this scale has been undertaken
anywhere in the world. Smaller and less ambitious systems have
encountered substantial technological and operational problems that
are likely to be amplified in a large scale national system”. Now, if
that is true of Britain it has to be true of India in spades?
Nandan Nilekani: There is no question that this is a project where we
are going into uncharted territories, the technological challenges are
immense and one of the risks of this project is the technology.
Karan Thapar: The technology is so essential to the project that I put
it to you, this is not just uncharted territory, this could end up
being a case of India's ambition outstripping its ability. After all,
even today, we can't issue identity cards with a guarantee that the
name is correct or that the address hasn't been misspelled. We could
end up making a complete hash of biometric details.
Nandan Nilekani: There are certain risks in this project but I think
given the enormous opportunity and developmental benefits that it can
give, it's worth taking on the project and trying to mitigate the
risks so that we get the outcomes that we want.
Karan Thapar: But you do accept that the technology is not just
uncharted but at this moment not actually fully known?
Nandan Nilekani: There is no other country in the world where a
billion peoples’ biometrics have been captured and stored in an online
database. In that sense, it has not been done before.
Karan Thapar: We actually have to invent the technology for this size
and scale of operation?
Nandan Nilekani: No, we don't have to invent the technology, we have
to scale up the existing technology to work at this scale.
Karan Thapar: But it's such a fantastic scaling up that it's almost a
reinvention.
Nandan Nilekani: It's not a reinvention but a scaling up.
Karan Thapar:The second problem inherent is the problem of cost. Once
again, the London School of Economics (LSE) did an analysis of a
similar project that the British government was thinking of, and that
remember is a country which is one-twentieth the size of India and the
LSE concluded that the probable cost for Britain would be between 10
to 20 billion pounds. Frontline magazine believes that the government
in India has a guesstimate of somewhere around Rs 1.5 lakh crore. Is
it worth it at that cost?
Nandan Nilekani: I don't agree with that estimate. I don't know what
the exact figure is but it is much less than that by a factor of 10.
Karan Thapar: If you don't know the exact figure, how can you say it
is lesser by a factor of 10?
Nandan Nilekani: The bulk part is certainly going to be lesser than
that.
Karan Thapar: But it's a guess that you are giving me, isn't it?
Nandan Nilekani: It's a guess but it's an informed and educated
guess.
Karan Thapar:So the truth is we don't know what the exact cost will
be?
Nandan Nilekani: We don't know what the cost will be but I am very
confident that whatever the cost is the social, economic and
efficiency benefits of it would make it well worth it.
Karan Thapar:Let me question that. India is a poor country. I put it
to you that this order of money could be better spent if you expand
education, health and sanitation or if you use it to feed the 40 per
cent of Indian children who are chronically malnourished.
Nandan Nilekani: We certainly don't want to take away money from
important social programmes but remember that as we expand our social
programmes, the efficiency of the social programme depends on the fact
that they reach the right people and that there are no duplicates who
are taking away the benefits which are meant for the poor. We need to
make them more efficient. So you need the infrastructure at the bottom
to make that happen.
Karan Thapar:There is no doubt that the unique identification number
could play some role in targeting benefits better at people who
deserve it, but when in India the prime need is education, health and
particularly health for women and children, sanitation (700 million
Indians do not have proper sanitation facilities), surely this money
could be better used.
Nandan Nilekani: The investment of money in this project will actually
make all those other monies be spent more efficiently. Think of it as
an infrastructure for enabling you to spend money more effectively.
Karan Thapar:All of that depends on the assumption that technology can
tackle these problems. Despite all the positive potential benefits of
the project, the assumption that technology can actually tackle the
ills of social inefficiency and social problems -- that's a huge
assumption.
Nandan Nilekani: Certainly it's a huge assumption.
Karan Thapar:Maybe an unjustified one?
Nandan Nilekani: Look at it simply. You talked about maternal care, we
have 10 million women who get health benefits under the JSY programme
but we have to make sure that the right women get it before their
pregnancy so their health will improve, the quality of the delivery
will improve. These are all real social problems that this information
can help you to solve.
Karan Thapar:Let me tell you why that is an inadequate example. You
can only target better those women who are actually availing of the
benefits but not receiving them fully. Take the example of BPL, it is
a much better quoted example. The real problem in India is not that
people who should receive BPL assistance do not get it properly and
that there is leakage. The real problem is that there is a vast number
of people who qualify and are not included in the BPL threshold at
all. How will you be addressing the second problem?
Nandan Nilekani: What happens today in a particular state is that
there may be more BPL cards than the population of the state because
there are multiple cards issued to an individual. With the UID, you
will be able to actually trim that down to one card per individual and
therefore we will actually know who is not getting this now.
Karan Thapar:But what you can't do is to identify the people who
should have BPL cards and do not have them because they are outside
the system, they have been ignored. Technology won't improve that?
Nandan Nilekani: This (UID) is not a panacea for all the problems.
This is an enabler which will allow more effective public delivery.
Karan Thapar:Which is why I say to you that the order of sum of money
involved could be better spent in targeting education, sanitation and
health not to mention child malnutrition because you would actually
then get real benefits rather than what I am describing as 'notional
benefits.'
Nandan Nilekani: Suppose in a country we are spending 100 to 200
thousand crores a year on different kinds of subsidies and social
benefits, to make investment which is a part of that one time, to make
those investments more efficient is definitely well worth it.
Karan Thapar:Is it a one-time investment? In fact, the Frontline
magazine says that the government's estimate of Rs 1.5 lakh crore does
not include recurring cost. The recurring cost could add to that and
we don't know by how much?
Nandan Nilekani: On the scale of money that we spend on public
programmes and the ability of the project to deliver better public
programmes it will be well worth it.
Karan Thapar:That is the debate. We are leaping in the dark in the
belief that technology would help us deliver our programmes better.
But as you say the technology is not known, it has to be upgraded in
such an enormous scale that I call it a reinvention although you
dispute that. The cost itself is unknown, you agreed to that. And
therefore I put it to you again, there are so many imponderables about
technology, size and cost that is it wise for a poor country like
ours, where there are huge levels of poverty (Arjun Sen Gupta
Committee report says that 80 per cent of India live under Rs 20 a
day), should we therefore be spending this sort of money on this
project?
Nandan Nilekani: The Government has come to the conclusion that this
project is stragetic and worth it. I have been invited to lead this
project. I believe that it is viable and I will do my best to make it
viable.
Karan Thapar:Let me come to the third inherent problem in the unique
identification number project. How can you ensure that the database
that you are creating will be secure and that it won't be misused and
it won't, worst of all, result in an invasion of privacy?
Nandan Nilekani: That is a very legitimate concern. We are looking at
the design as to how to make it secure. We are saying that nobody can
read this database. All they can do is verify the authenticity of an
identity. You can ask a question like -- is x x? and the only answer
we will give is yes or no. So there is no data coming down from the
pipe. But there is no question that once the UID is implemented and
the UID becomes ubiquitous in many applications, then there are
challenges of privacy and I think along with this project, we have to
put in other checks and balances, including laws.
Karan Thapar:Can you ever put in sufficient checks and balances? You
said that people can only verify against this database. They won't
actually be able to read it, but professor Ian Angle of the LSE, a
world renowned authority on precisely the creation of such database,
says with relevance to England, and it will apply even more to India,
that what you are going to end up with is the "Olympic games of
hacking." You are going to provide people the biggest challenge to
hack through. No one believes in the perfectability of computers, so
hackers will hack and succeed.
Nandan Nilekani: This again is a legitimate concern but we will have
to design it as good as possible.
Karan Thapar:Can you design it to prevent hacking?
Nandan Nilekani: We can certainly create checks and balances.
Karan Thapar:The risk of hacking can never be removed hundred per
cent?
Nandan Nilekani: In every system, there will be people who will try to
hack on it. Some are impenetrable, some are not. The important thing
is -- is the risk of hacking and privacy large enough not to do this
project? And the view is that the project has so many significant
benefits for the poor in making it inclusive and in giving them a
chance to participate in the country's progress, that it is worth it
and we have to mitigate those risks.
Karan Thapar:In India, you are creating a system which in the wrong
hands would be a powerful tool for either religious or caste
profiling. How can you ensure that unscruplous politicians won't
misuse it for their benefit and against your intentions and the best
interest of the Indian people?
Nandan Nilekani: We are not keeping any profiling attributes in our
database.
Karan Thapar:You mean you won't have any details of people's caste?
Nandan Nilekani: No.
Karan Thapar:In which case, how can you say to me that you will better
target benefits at BPL and other categories because if you don't know
someone is SC or ST, if you don't know that they are OBC, how can you
ensure better targetting?
Nandan Nilekani: That is the responsibility of the applicant that
provides those services.
Karan Thapar:So then they will add in that feature into your detail?
Nandan Nilekani: That is outside our system. Our system has only basic
attributes like the name, address, date of birth.
Karan Thapar:When you say that it's outside your system, you are
providing the fundamentals for someone else to misuse? But misuse, if
not at your end, will happen later on.
Nandan Nilekani: There are databases today which are accessible and
therefore along with this we have to create the necessary laws, checks
and balances, the citizen oversight to guard against these things.
Karan Thapar:The first thing that you conceded or accepted is that
even if there is no misuse at your end, there is a huge potential of
misuse at the end of other people who have access and use it and add
to it. What you are doing therefore is that you are creating a weapon
which you may not misuse but others could?
Nandan Nilekani: Today itself we have electronic databases in the
country which potentially can be used the way you are suggesting. We
are not doing something different from what already exists.
Karan Thapar:You said a moment ago that you would create checks and
balances. I put it to you that you can never create sufficient and the
reason say is this -- In the UK, in the US and in Australia, because
the authorities couldn't respond to public concerns about misuse, they
have effectively put on the backburner consideration of similar
schemes for those countries. Now if developed countries cannot tackle
the problem of misuse, then how can India, where 35 per cent of the
people are illiterate and 22 per cent live below the poverty line? How
can India claim that we can tackle these problems?
Nandan Nilekani:What these developed countries have put on hold is
giving national ID cards to people. But both the countries, US and UK
have a number. For example in the US, you have the social security
number, in the UK there is the national insurance number. They already
have a numbering system, which is what we are going to propose.
Karan Thapar:Except for the fact that it is nowhere near as extensive
or as complete in terms of the biometeric details as what you are
proposing in India. The national insurance in Britain has been around
and developing slowly but it doesn't have any details that could lead
to an invasion of privacy. It doesn't have any details that can be
misused for profiling. Yours could have both?
Nandan Nilekani: As I said, these are legitimate concerns and I think
we have to address them in the public as well as in the laws and so
on. But notwithstanding these concerns, the social benefit, the
inclusivity that this project will provide for the 700 million people
in this country who are outside the system is immense enough to
justify doing this project.
Karan Thapar:Can I challenge that justification? You are making it as
an assertion, you are making it perhaps as a system of belief but
what's the proof that the benefit will actually justify the risk?
Nandan Nilekani: The benefit is a profound benefit because the poor
who don't have identity in this country will be able to get an
identity, it will empower them, it will help to meet their
aspirations, they are the people for whom this is being done and I do
believe they will benefit greatly from this number.
Karan Thapar:you talk of giving people an identity but the problem is
you are not a demographer, you are a technocrat. How are you going to
handle the inevitable problems of internal migration or illegal
immigration which are going to bedevil your scheme. How are you going
to ensure that the wrong people aren't captured in your system and
given an identity and made Indian?
Nandan Nilekani: Having this number does not confer any rights,
benefits or any entitlements. All it does is confirm that X is X.
Karan Thapar:There are hundred ways of doing that. Why are we spending
close to Rs 1.5 lakh crore on this project just to be able to claim X
is X?
Nandan Nilekani: To have a system which uses a unique identifier like
biometrics, having a system which ensures there are no duplicates and
having a system that provides online authentication is, we believe,
something that can have a lot of social benefits for the poor.
Karan Thapar:I won't question that belief although I call it a
catechism of faith. One either accepts it on faith or one doesn't
Nandan Nilekani: I am not a high priest of technology.
Karan Thapar:I will end by quoting the conclusion the LSE came to when
they reviewed a potential British concept along the lines of what you
are doing in India: "The success of a national identity system depends
on a sensitive cautious and cooperative approach involving all key
stakeholders, including an independent and rolling assessment and
regular review of management practices," and the LSE concluded that
did not exist in the UK. If it does not exist in the UK, that
environment certainly doesn't exist in India?
Nandan Nilekani: We are trying to make sure that all the checks and
balances are there. We will have a very wide consultative process. We
will involve everybody. We will make it public. All these are
legitimate concerns and we have an obligation to meet these concerns.
Karan Thapar:I Hope you succeed. A pleasure talking to you.
Nandan Nilekani:Thank you.
chhotemianinshallah
First set of ID numbers in 18 months: Nilekani
Sandeep Joshi
“We will not use data from other sources”
In future, the number may become mandatory
NEW DELHI: Clarifying that the Unique Identification Authority of
India (UIDAI) plans to issue a unique number to each citizen and not
any identity card, its Chairman Nandan Nilekani on Wednesday hoped
that the ambitious project would ensure social inclusion of the poor,
marginalised and displaced population in the country, besides helping
security agencies in maintaining law and order.
“The unique number will give a unique identity to every citizen, more
importantly to poor and marginalised people of society, thereby
helping governments to ensure their social inclusion and improve
efficiency of the public delivery system. Though it will not be a
panacea for everything, it will create a foundation infrastructure
that will help bring change [in society],” Mr. Nilekani said in an
interaction with the media organised by the Indian Women Press Corps.
Informing that the first set of 16-digit unique identity numbers would
be issued in the next 18 months, Mr. Nilekani, former co-Chairman of
IT major Infosys, said the UIDAI would issue UID to 60-crore citizens
in the next 5-6 years. “The challenge will be the enrolment of poor
and marginalised people for the UID numbers. Then there are technical
challenges like safety and protection of database, and safeguarding
privacy of individuals,” he said.
Terming the task of providing UID numbers to over 100-crore Indians as
“humongous,” he said soon a consultant would be appointed who would
take care of all the formalities for the bidding process for selecting
a ‘managed service provider,’ which will take care of the centralised
database.
Giving a sense of how the system would work, Mr. Nilekani said the
UIDAI would give every citizen a UID number, either through direct
enrolment or to requests forwarded by any other government agency like
those issuing PAN card, passports, driving licence, ration cards and
job cards; and these UID numbers will be mentioned in the document.
chhotemianinshallah
Mitu Jayashankar, 01.07.10, 06:00 PM EST
Picked up business sense at IIT-Bombay; helped build Infy; now, Nandan
Nilekani brings the spirit of entrepreneurship to the business of
governing.
Nandan Nilekani
HE IS the chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)
and co-founder of Infosys Technologies
LAST JOB: Co-chairman, Infosys Technologies
THE CHALLENGE: The UIDAI, too, is like a start-up. My prior success in
no way guarantees success in this world and if I don't deliver then
the consequences could be large
For Rohini Nilekani life seems to have come a full circle. Arghyam,
her elegant house in suburban Bangalore has been turned into the
unofficial headquarter of the Unique Identification Authority of India
(UIDAI). Ever since her husband Nandan Nilekani gave up the co-
chairman's job at Infosys, the $4.6 billion (revenue, in 2008-09)
company he co-founded with six colleagues in 1981, to take up a role
in public service, there has been an endless stream of visitors at
Arghyam. Although UIDAI's official headquarter is in Delhi, the
technical team is based in Bangalore. Nandan Nilekani splits his time
between Delhi and Bangalore and just like in the early days of
Infosys, where the founders often met at each others homes, lot of
brainstorming on the project happens at the Nilekani household. "For
30 years Infosys consumed him and now it is UIDAI," Rohini Nilekani
says only half seriously.
The day we meet him at his house, Nandan and Rohini Nilekani have just
returned from a workshop at the National Law School in Bangalore where
he brainstormed with a group of legal experts on how to create the
legal framework for the UIDAI. A week ago he was in Bihar where he had
a 90-minute lunch meeting at chief minister Nitish Kumar's house. The
day after our meeting, Nilekani is flying off to Mumbai to meet the
Maharashtra chief minister. In the last four months he has met 12 CMs
to explain to them the intricacies of the UID project and ask for
their support in enrolling people into the program.
In between meeting the CMs, Nilekani attends seminars and workshops
like the one organised by the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies at
Shimla where he met a bunch of sociologists, NGOs and political
scientists to evangelise his UID project and to understand how it can
be used to create inclusive models of development.
"This is my Bharat Darshan", he says, "I had seen more of America than
India before this". That time he was selling Infosys to the Fortune
500 crowd, now he is selling the concept of a national identity
programme to the grassroots politicians and bureaucrats. It is a far
cry from the life he led just six months ago and yet it somehow seems
he has been doing this for years. Even Rohini is surprised by how well
he has transitioned into the new role.
EMOTIONAL PARTING
Leaving Infosys was not an easy decision. "As founders we had the
understanding that if somebody had to leave it would be with the
consent and approval of others. When you have been together for 30
years you just don't walk off and leave," says Nilekani. Initially, he
says he felt an emotional void, and even today he has to remind
himself not to use the pronoun "we" when describing Infosys. "I was
very comfortable in my world. I was doing well and could have stayed
on at Infosys till the age of 60. I didn't have to do this" he says.
So then why did he? Part of the reason was that he was restless. "I
thrive on challenges and new intellectual issues. I had to show that I
could execute something outside my normal world. So there was that
desire to prove myself again." The other was the feeling that he
needed to give something back to the country. "I come from that part
of India which had a good run. I had the right education, went to IIT,
and was here when liberalization happened. I was fortunate to be an
entrepreneur in that time, rose to the top of my company and benefited
hugely in many ways," he says. He felt it was now time to give back.
Although Rohini is well ensconced in the not-for-profit world, Nandan
Nilekani didn't want to go down the philanthropy route. "If you want
to bring change on a large scale, which is material to many people you
have to do it through the public space. There's no other way to do it"
he says.
Some of this became evident to him while researching his book,
Imagining India, a 511 page tome on the big ideas that could transform
India. The rest of it was gained through his experience of working
with the government as on outsider. For 10 years, Nilekani had been
operating on the fringes of public policy. He had served on various
committees for S.M. Krishna, ex-chief minister of Karnataka, as well
as been on the Prime Minister's urban renewal mission and national
skills mission. It was during this time that he was noticed by the PM
which ultimately led to his latest appointment.
BUILDING CONSENSUS
In roughly a year from now, the first UID number will be allotted. The
plan is to cover about 200 million people in the first two years. In
four years about 600 million numbers would have been issued. According
to a UID report, the enrolment of each resident will cost between Rs.
20-25 which puts the total enrolment cost at Rs. 3,000 crore.
In India, there is no single universally accepted identity number.
Previous attempts by the government to create one have not worked. In
1993 the Government of India tried to issue photo identity cards by
the Election Commission and then in 2003 it approved the Multipurpose
National Identity Card. The inability to provide identity is one of
the biggest barriers for the poor to access benefits and subsidies.
Given the scale and complexity of the issue, the task cannot be
achieved by one agency alone. Nilekani is well aware that for him to
succeed, he needs the help of existing government infrastructure. He
needs to partner with organizations running schemes like NREGA
(National Rural Employment Gurantee Act), RSBY (Rashtriya Swasthya
Bima Yojna) and the Public Distribution System that will bring in the
poor and underprivileged into the UID system. Getting a UID number is
not mandatory so he needs the support of state administration, local
bodies, NGOs and public sector enterprises to get people to enroll.
One of his biggest strengths at Infosys was building consensus and
breaking down a complex problem and get people to identify the
specific parts where they could not agree. The other was his supreme
networking skills. He is putting both to good use here. "The big
difference in private and public is that in private sector your
consensus building is within the frame of your own company — your
management team and the board. Here it cuts across a whole different
set of stakeholders who have different points of view, which involves
more work."
Nilekani is aware that he comes to this job with a certain "brand
perception". He is famous and wealthy and while these two attributes
help in opening many doors, there are people inside the government who
do not believe that he understands the problems and issues of the
poor. This is why he has launched what he calls an "outreach
programme" where he makes the first move in reaching out to various
organizations and departments inside the government and public sector.
He says it helps to dissolve anxieties that others have about him.
What he cannot still solve is the "personal dislocation" that this job
has brought to him and his family. Ever since he moved to Delhi, he
has been living in hotels and has just received the possession of the
minister's bungalow allotted to him. For him home is still Bangalore,
a city he has lived in for the last 22 years. Every weekend he travels
to Bangalore to see his wife and mother and to get his haircut.
DOUBLE OR QUITS
If Nilekani is able to successfully complete the UID project, it could
have far reaching benefits. It will improve the delivery of social
welfare programs, lead to more inclusion of the underprivileged, bring
down the government's transaction costs and plug leaks and fraud in
welfare schemes. But the implications of Nilekani's role go far beyond
the UID. He is one of the most high profile hires made by the Manmohan
Singh government so far. If he succeeds, a lot more people from the
private sector and academic world will step forward to work with the
government. If he fails that movement could slow down, which is why so
many people across the country are watching this move so closely.
Nandan is well-aware of the risks. In the private sector, nine out of
10 start-ups usually fail. As he himself says many times during the
course of the interview, the UID too is like a start-up. "My prior
success in no way guarantees success in this world and if I don't
deliver then the consequences could be large." The only consolation he
has is that it won't be for the lack of trying.
"I am like a guy in an all night poker game, who at 3 a.m. in the
morning is sitting with a pile of chips in front of him. If he is
smart he packs up and goes home. But if he is like me he puts all his
chips back on the table and plays one more round," he says.
For the sake of a billion Indians, we hope Nandan wins this round.
This article appears in the Jan. 8 issue of Forbes India, a Forbes
Media licensee.
http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/07/forbes-india-nandan-nilekani-governtrepreneur.html
chhotemianinshallah
PTI Friday, January 22, 2010 18:27 IST
Bangalore: Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India
(UIAI) Nandan Nilekani today sought the help of researchers in solving
the "massive computational challenges and problems" in the
implementation of the UIAI project.
"There is no way we can do this alone. We are going to need help from
all of you (researchers)", he said launching a computer science
community portal ResearchAndYou.com of Microsoft Research India at its
annual research symposium "TechVista 2010" and fifth year celebrations
here.
Nilekani said the project's idea is to give a unique identification to
over a billion Indians. There will be a thousand challenges to the
research community as it will be the biggest biometric data base that
has ever been made, he said.
Listing out the project's advantages, he said it would help in
bridging the digital divide and also help ensure that public spending
is really delivered to the right people.
Nilekani said there are quite a few tasks ahead which include creation
of a big data depository and adoption of Unique Identification.
The project, he said, aims to provide online authentication of
identity.
UIAI's technology group is in Bangalore, he said adding "we intend to
float a request for proposal by next week". A 'proof of concept' will
be shown in two to three states in the coming months.
The first set of UID's will be rolled out between August 2010 and
February 2011,he said.