http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/no-benefits-for-beneficiaries/article5753965.ece
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is
responsible for implementing the Aadhaar scheme. It is a unique identification
project. ‘Nandan M Nilekani’ is the chairman of the Unique Identification
Database Authority of India under the aegis of the Planning Commission. The
first phase of today’s UID was initiated by NDA regime in 1999 after the report
of Kargil Review Committee in 2000. It decided to compulsory enroll every
citizen of India in ‘National population Register’ (NPR). To implement this,
individual privacy in Citizenship Act 1955 was diluted. So the basic groundwork
for today’s UID was cleared in 2003.
UID gives a 12-digit National Identification Number, UID
Number is designed to enable government agencies to deliver retail public
services securely based on biometric data (fingerprint, iris scan and face
photo), along with demographic data (name, age, gender, address, parent/ spouse
name, mobile phone number) of a person. UID Number also works as a bank account
number or one can link UID number to any existing bank account. This is
designed to help spread low cost, ubiquitous, branchless banking services in
rural areas - called micro-ATM, as part of the Financial Inclusion initiative
by GoI. The aim of UID is not only to expand its social security system but to
aim and keep benefits restricted to the targeted section, to provide subsidies
to people who really require it. It is a larger effect to replace the existing
PDS system. Aadhaar has advantage over other biometric solutions as it allows
inter-operability among banks and business correspondent. It also allows
uniformity of biometric data across country, single biometric service across
all govt schemes and eliminates the need of doing separate biometric enrolment
for different schemes.
Govt of India have included many benefit system into Aadhaar-enabled
payment systems (AEPS) developed by NPCL. The AEPS will now allow customers to
avail of banking facilities through banking correspondents (BC) across banks. The
objective of AEPS is to empower a bank customer to use Aadhaar to access
his/her Aadhaar-enabled bank account and perform basic banking transactions
that are intra-bank or interbank in nature through a business correspondent. Presently,
there are ten core promoter banks (State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank,
Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, Union bank of India, Bank of India, ICICI Bank,
HDFC Bank, Citibank and HSBC). It would enable banks to route the
Aadhaar-initiated interbank transactions through a central switching and
clearing agency. It would facilitate disbursements of government entitlements
like NREGA, social security pension, handicapped old age pension, etc., of any
central or state government bodies, using Aadhaar and authentication there of
as supported by UIDAI.
The pilot project was launched in Jharkhand state in
association with three banks - Bank of India, Union Bank of India and ICICI
Bank. And in the town of kotkasim in Alwar district of Rajasthan there was a
saving of 79% in subsidies. These pilot projects faced lots of problems the
main reason of this saving was considered to be the collapse of kerosene
distribution system. It is argued that in case if DBT system replaces PDS
system there will be chaos and disruption of flow of food will occur as rural markets
are not that developed. Also there is concern for special group of people as
aged population, single women and for those who are incapable of going to banks
to take their benefits. However to use these micro-ATM through BC there are
also issues of connectivity to central grid of information, proper penetration
of UID based bank accounts and also these people are left at the mercy of
business correspondent.
UIDAI was established in February 2009, and owns and operates
the Unique Identification Number database. It has been established under the
Planning Commission. It provides a unique identification number to all persons
resident in India, but not identity cards. UID enrolment was started without
any approval from the legislative. However attorney general came out with
statement that executive powers are independent from legislative and there is
nothing in law that opposes the functioning of UIDAI under executive
authorization. The UIDAI bill 2010 was tabled in parliament to make UIDAI into
a statutory body but it was criticized by a parliamentary standing committee on
finance (SCOF) headed by Yashwant Sinha. Report submitted by SCOF stated that
UIDAI compromises with the security and confidentiality of information of UID
holders and has major national security issues. Also there is no any law that
protects the national data, in absence of such data protection law it would be
difficult to deal with the issues like access and misuse of data, surveillance,
profiling, linking and matching of a database and security confidentiality of
the data. Report cites examples of a similar failed experiment of UK govt and
states that lessons are to be learnt from these developed countries about cost
to program, technological problems and risk of safety of citizen.
Former justice K. S. Puttaswamy went
to court against the linking of benefits to UID scheme. The way the government has gone about
implementing this project is odd and illegal. After the Parliament’s Standing
Committee on Finance rejection of the National Identification Authority of
India Bill, 2010, government did not attempt to modify the Bill and bring it
back for parliamentary approval. It is not constitutional to simply proceed
using an executive order to implement a scheme that has been rejected. Main
problems to this bill are:
·
It does not have Parliament’s approval.
·
It violates our right to privacy, we are required provide
biometric information, iris and fingerprints, and there is no system to ensure
that all this data will be safe and not misused.
·
Another concern is that it is easy for anyone to get an Aadhaar
number. The enrolment centres are run by private operators so anyone can walk
in and get one, even undocumented immigrants can get one and that’s a clear
security threat.
Supreme Court sent notice to govt on legality of DBT and Aadhaar,
arguing that it was unconstitutional and contradicts with right to privacy. SC
in its verdict said that Aadhaar cards are voluntary and no person should be
discriminated if she/he does not have an Aadhaar number.
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