Another project which shows the importance of strong political support is the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), whose chairman is Nandan Nilekani. The task is to set up a countrywide personal biometric database and issue hundreds of millions of people with a 12-digit unique identification number called an aadhaar (foundation stone). Estimates have for years suggested that 70 per cent or more of such aid is lost on its way down to rural recipients. By early 2013, the system was beginning to be used for a direct cash transfer scheme to deliver aid money via Aadhaarvalidated bank accounts.
There were, inevitably, technical glitches when the scheme was being rolled out, but Nilekani’s ambitious aim is to have enrolled more than 50 per cent of the population by 2014. He was appointed by Manmohan Singh with the rank of a central cabinet minister in 2009 to set up and run the UIDAI.
That provided him with the status he needed to be effective, but his strength in cutting through political and bureaucratic blockages has stemmed from the backing of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. P.
Chidambaram, the finance minister, has called the identification number a ‘game changer’ in the delivery of corruption-prone aid money and a ‘massive re-engineering of the system’. Pranab Mukherjee and Montek Singh Ahluwalia were also supporters, but the Gandhis’ backing was crucial in the project’s early days when Chidambaram was home minister (2008–2012) and favoured his ministry’s rival scheme that was focused more on catching illegal immigrants.
Nilekani, a politically savvy and cautiously media-friendly technocrat, says he was looking for a public role where he could make a difference with his technology knowledge when he was invited by Manmohan Singh to lead the UIDAI.18 He was attracted to the challenge and simple definition of success – to build the biometric database and enrol hundreds of millions of people. Aadhaar is intended to include the poor in India’s growth by giving them an identity and easier access to opening bank accounts, obtaining mobile phones and gas connections and, most importantly, protecting the delivery of their aid funds. ‘This enhances access of the common man to public services while reducing the hassle he or she faces in accessing the service,’ says Nilekani.19
Nilekani sees this as a first step in a continuing programme to bring know-how metaphorically from his old base of Bengaluru to Delhi, using information technology to streamline and improve
government operations ranging from national information programmes to taxation. ‘Needless to say, active political support and civil society engagement is a sine qua non for this to happen’, he says.20 He envisages combining technology with regulatory and institutional reform to change the way the government relates with the private sector as a buyer on defence and other equipment and services, as a seller such as on licences for natural resources, and as a regulator in areas such as telecoms.21 He has been advising the government on the formation of a not-for-profit company called Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), jointly owned by central and state governments, with additional private sector equity, that could provide a countrywide technology infrastructure for the new tax.
Notes
1. Interview with JE, June 2013
2. http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/odishas-cyclone-shows-india-can-handle-disasters-but-longer-term-action-is-needed/
3. ‘Harvard to get Kumbh lesson from Akhilesh’, Indian Express, 13 April 2013,
http://m.indianexpress.com/news/harvard-to-get-kumbh-lesson-from-akhilesh/1101841 4. In conversation with JE, May 2013
5. Rahul Mehotra’s architecture firm website http://rmaarchitects.com/
6. ‘Lessons of a temporary city – Researchers from across Harvard share findings from India’s Kumbh Mela festival’, Harvard Gazette, 4 April 2013,
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/04/lessons-of-a-temporary-city/
7. Speaking at the British Council in Delhi, May 2013
8. ‘“Direct cash transfer facility for UID cardholders”: Nandan Nilekani’, PTI, 26 November 2012, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-11-26/news/35364892_1_uid-project-uid-numbers-nandan-nilekani
9. JE, ‘On the Road to Repair’, Fortune magazine, 31 October 2005
10. http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2007/07/19/hastening-slowly-on-india%E2%80%99s-highways/
11. http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/nath-inherits-a-muddy-murky-highways-programme/
12. Clive Bell and Susanne van Dillen, ‘How Does India’s Rural Roads Program Affect the Grassroots? Findings from a Survey in Orissa’, World Bank, August 2012,
http://elibrary.worldbank.org/docserver/download/6167.pdf?
expires=1379402806&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=AEDB7F1E5FDEB9CFF94647C0E6D0F2C9 13.
https://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/sheila-dikshit-gets-it-wrong-and-now-plans-a-%E2%80%9Cflexi-brt%E2%80%9D-muddle/
14. ‘E. Sreedharan: More Than the Metro Man’, Forbes India, 5 October 2012,
http://forbesindia.com/article/leaderhip-award-2012/e-sreedharan-more-than-the-metro-man/33847/1#ixzz2OjIjaBOF
15. JE, ‘Delhi’s Delight’, Fortune magazine, 31 October 2005
16. Anuj Dayal, 35 Management Strategies for Delhi Metro’s Success: The Sreedharan Way, published by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, Delhi, 2012
17. A series of articles on the Wall Street Journal’s ‘India RealTime’ blog reported in 2012 on the impact of the Delhi Metro: http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/05/30/metrocity-journal-delhis-changing-landscape/, http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/05/31/metrocity-journal-the-new-trade-routes/, http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/u06/01/metrocity-journal-public-vs-private-space/?mod=WSJBlog&mod=irt,
http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/06/02/metrocity-journal-up-up-and-away/
18. Conversations with JE, 2012
19. Nandan Nilekani, ‘Tackling Corruption: Some Alternative Approaches’, The 19th Lovraj Kumar Memorial Lecture, 1st November 2012,
http://uidai.gov.in/images/tackling_corruption_01112012.pdf 20. Ibid.
21. Nandan Nilekani, ‘Passing a law can’t solve the corruption problem’, CNN-IBN, 22 October 2012; video trailer of interview: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/nilekani-slams-kejriwal-says-passing-a-law-cant-solve-the-corruption-problem/301655-37-64.html and
http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/corruption-tamashas-and-gossip-flood-india-but-change-will-be-very-slow/