Jun 18 2014 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

Retain Aadhaar, Create Version 2.0





The new government is taking a call on whether to continue with Aadhaar. There is no scope for confusion. Aadhaar is a transformational project that will give the country's over 14 crore urban migrant population a means to establish their identity , and raise the productive potential of the country . It has already created a database of identities defined by biometric characteristics that cannot be duplicated, and tagging bank accounts with Aadhaar will enable the government to uniquely identify every beneficiary of any welfare scheme. It has also paved the way for a nationwide infrastructure for electronic banking. Abandoning Aadhaar will deny the poor access to financial inclusion. The project should not be killed due to partisan politics.It made no sense to mandate use of Aadhaar to disburse cooking gas subsidy , without universal enrolment. However, this, in no way , takes away Aadhaar's potential to reform the country's public finances. Aadhaar-linked cash transfers will lead to efficient disbursal of subsidy and remove dual pricing of products made affordable by subsidy . When anything is available at a subsidised and a market price, it creates an incentive to divert the subsidised product for sale in the market, defeating the purpose of the subsidy .
The government must give legal backing to Aadhaar, but with safeguards to avert any misuse of information that the National Identification Authority of India will share with other organisations that deliver public services. Information must be kept in separate silos. To address the concerns of privacy champions and protect information on citizens, the government should enact a law on Right to Privacy . Aadhaar can drill down below the postal code for geographic specificity , to include the Census village number.