2 - Tue, 4 Aug 2009

I am of the opinion that UID is a great project and asking Nandan to take is also the right decision. Having built a fine company like infosys, India is lucky to have the seasoned professionals like him to guide this. One need not have expertise in every subject or worked in the slums to know the problems of issuing ID cards. How many of us who are offering comments have idea of rural India or urban slums? Still all of us are contributing by expressing our opinions.

Just one use of dispending PDS kerosene itself can pay for the entire cost of this system by manifolds and also will usher in a revolution in fighting corruption in India. PDS kerosene in my view is the mother of all corruption generating more than Rs 20 to 30 thousand crores of black money and add to it the domestic LPG. It will be more than Rs 40000 crores. The first time I heard of this project I was excited for this reason alone.

Yes passports are forged. Yes ration cards are forged. Yes Pakistanis will issue UID cards. There will be hundred and one thing that can go wrong. The more we know how it can be misuded, preventive steps can be built. Still it will not be even 95% perfect. But if we can achieve that kind of perfection one can claim that it is a great project. Let us remember perfection has been proven to be the great enemy of the good.

With good centralized system (suugested by Sri kumar), a system can revolutionize the entire welfare dispension system. In fact some politicians who instinctively know that their game may be over, are critical of UID system.

Bhamy V Shenoy, IITM