Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010
Subject: Re: Aadhaar - What Next ?
After sifting through the bulk of interesting material on the aadhar blog created by you, I have the following to say:
a. The project Aadhar intentionally or unintentionally aims to 'institutionalize poverty' in India, the way it is being done by other such 'mega' welfare schemes like NREGA etc. are unsuccessfully trying to attempt.
b. There are multifarious other robust mechanisms of establishing an individual's identity, which are time tested and have been operating in a decentralized manner. What is the rationale and relevance of spending such a massive chunk of money on a parallel regime. Why not use a fraction of this money on empowering the existing systems & process. Driving License, Ration Card, Election ID Card...A robust set of systems is far better than a single integrated whole. If one system falters, the others are there to take charge.
c. A large number of similarly ambitious 'digital enablement' projects are lying stagnant, unheeded and ignored which can empower the poor people of India much more than anything else. For e.g. in the year 1988, on the behest of the Planning Commission a project namely DISNIC (disnic.nic.in) was conceived to accentuate Local Level Spatial Planning for the villages of the country. The entire project was the brainchild of Mr. Madaswamy Moni who is the DDG at NIC, Delhi Even after two decades, the project has not witnessed any tangible success due to non-allocation of funds. Mr. Moni, who is an IIT Madras Alumni, is the father of a number of such highly relevant but poorly funded projects. The holistic mapping, documentation and planning of Village resources is certainly the key for a better value enhancement and thereby empowering the local economies.
d. In order to understand the far reaching implications of Aadhar, it would be imperative to prepare a detailed progress report on the various 'digital enablement' projects in the country. It would give a reality check as to what all we have been able to accomplish.
e. At times, when we are not able to accomplish results despite the best of resource allocation, we should certainly sit back and question the founding premises on the basis of which we started in the first place. Projects like Aadhar, which inevitably empower and facilitate a centralized authority have a number of fundamental weaknesses. If these foundations are at least analyzed and questioned, it won't take much time for even a layman to understand the niraadhar of aadhar.
In the Indian Policy and Administrative Framework, technical projects with fancy outcomes & exorbitant costs are favored over low cost simple techno-managerial interventions which can increase the efficiency.
f. The over arching centralization of governance, compounded with 'mega' welfare schemes for the poor is nothing but political commerce. Welfare schemes, if they are not locally designed and planned, just can't reach their fruition in a centralized planning regime.
Raghav Mittal, IIT Kgp
