UID project Set to be Thrashed

[Stuge]

A parliamentary committee is set to reject the National Identification Authority of India Bill 2010, inflicting a severe blow to Unique Identification Authority of India chairman Nandan Nilekani and raising doubts about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's pet project. Former IT czar Nilekani, who holds cabinet minister rank as UIDAI chief, had been keen on the enactment of the Bill so that a statutory National Identification Authority could be established. The Bill, tabled in December last year, is geared to bolster the Aadhaar scheme under which every Indian " resident" will be assigned a unique ID (UID) number. Parliament's standing committee on finance, headed by Yashwant Sinha of the BJP, held deliberations on the controversial Bill for a year. Among those it consulted were experts and representatives of government departments. Nilekani had also appeared before the parliamentary committee and given his views on the subject. The committee's draft report giving the thumbs down to the Bill is ready and will be adopted on Thursday. Sources in the panel indicated that the decision to recommend that the government should withdraw the present Bill and bring a new one was taken "unanimously". Even Congress members found the project "directionless". It is learnt that the draft report has recommended that the government should review or reconsider the project by a bringing in a fresh Bill. The committee has said that the Bill and the project are not acceptable in the present form. So far, over 5.75 million UID cards have been issued countrywide. The cumulative revised budget estimates of the project, launched in 2009, is Rs 1,660 crore for 2010- 11 and 2011-12 put together. More than Rs 556 crore has already been spent on the scheme. The project has also been opposed by the finance ministry, the home ministry and the Planning Commission, further strengthening the committee's reservations to the bigticket scheme. Sources in the panel indicated that MPs like S. S Ahluwalia (BJP), Gurudas Dasgupta (CPI), Bhartruhari Mahtab (BJD) and Rashid Alvi (Congress) were most vocal in opposing the scheme. The draft report is of the view that the UID scheme has been conceptualised with no clarity or purpose.The standing committee's draft report on the legislation also reportedly noted that the project is riddled with serious lacunae in its content and execution. It is, however, up to the government to accept or reject the report of the standing committee in full or in part. The project had faced opposition on four main counts - inclusion of " residents" as opposed to "citizens"; issues related to privacy of those being assigned the UID numbers; duplication of the work being done for preparing the National Population Register ( NPR) using the same biometric attributes; and the massive expenditure that the project entails. The committee felt that the ongoing implementation of the project is "directionless". Sources said the panel is of the view that there is confusion within the government and the implementing agency on the funding, technology, privacy aspects and implementation of the project. The standing committee on finance "strongly disapproved" of the " hasty manner" in which the scheme is being implemented. The committee, sources said, feared that since private organisations and individuals are involved in the implementation process, the data collected for Aadhaar could end up in the hands of private players and misused. The committee has questioned the technology used in Aadhaar. The draft report is learnt to have termed the technology as "unreliable and untested". It has also cited the experience of foreign countries with similar schemes and said that many European nations withdrew their UID projects after opposition from the public. Noting such discrepancies, the committee has recommended that the Bill is not acceptable. The committee is learnt to have noted the opposition by finance ministry, home ministry and Planning Commission to the project.The finance ministry has reportedly expressed concern at the " lack of coordination" with the implementing agency and the government. The ministry is learnt to have told the panel that this lack of coordination is leading to duplication of efforts and adding to the expenditure of the project. The home ministry is learnt to have criticised the efficacy of the interlocutor system in implementing Aadhaar. The ministry has reportedly pointed out that the project can create a security concern as "somebody interested" can identify a citizen using the project. The plan panel also objected to the project. Incidentally, the UIDAI is at present working under the Planning Commission.Starting as a small office in Yojana Bhavan, the authority shifted its headquarters to a multistoried complex in Connaught Place while opening regional offices across the country. The standing committee's report is likely to be adopted without any dissent notes."Key ministries are opposed to the project. Members, cutting across party lines, have raised concerns in the implementation," a member of the panel said.

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/upa%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%E2%84%A2s-pet-uid-project-trashed-by-house-panel-nandan-nilekani/1/163250.html

[Sachin=GOD]

In this case some of the problems which the Standing Committee has pointed out are genuine and at the moment this bill does look directionless. There's lots of friction between the UIDAI and the Home Ministry/Finance Ministry and some other ministries and until all the issues are resolved, this bill is not feasible.

[Raghav_12]

This would be a big setback to country and to biggest isolated IT project ever contemplated. Implementation of UID is inevitable and is going to be reality some time. Sooner we got it, better it would be for country. This would help a lot in streamlining of many things across the country. If there are issues with the implementation of the project than those should be ironed out. Trashing this initiative would be very regressive step and would just confirm how narrow vision our current leadership has. I think a non-politiico person leading this initiative has something to do with all this opposition of the initiative.

[urbestfriend]

Well, it is a real shame that parliamentary committee is opposing the project at this juncture when all the ground work is done and UID has been issued to millions. They should continue to pursue it, if there are some genuine concerns they should try to address it rather than scrapping the whole project. Govt has no guts to make the UID mandatory for citizens as this is dent to huge votebank, so they would never enforce it leading to UID almost useless.

[Sachin=GOD]

House Panel Sees Holes Left, Right & Centre in Aadhar DEEPSHIKHA SIKARWAR NEW DELHI

The former finance minister and senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha-headed standing committee on finance has picked multiple holes in the much-hyped Unique Identification ‘Aadhar’ Scheme and asked the government to bring forth a fresh legislation before Parliament. The key objections of the committee on the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010 include: NO FEASIBILITY STUDY No comprehensive feasibility study -- including cost-benefit analysis, comparative costs of aadhar number before approving such an expensive scheme vis-àvis various forms of existing identity such as hologram-enabled ration card to eliminate fake and duplicate beneficiaries -- carried out. APPROVED IN HASTE Absence of data protection law would make it difficult to deal with issues such as access and misuse of personal information, surveillance, profiling, linking and matching of data bases and securing confidentiality information. SECURITY GAPS Entrusting the responsibility of verification of information of individuals to the registrars to ensure that only genuine residents get enrolled into the system may have far-reaching consequences for national security. The panel not sure as to whether complete verification of information of all aadhaar number holders is practically feasible and whether it would deliver the intended results without compromising national security. DIRECTIONLESS The UID scheme has been conceptualised with no clarity of purpose and is being implemented in a directionless way and may end up being dependent on private agencies. UNRELIABLE TECHNOLOGY The scheme is full of uncertainty in technology as the complex scheme is built on untested, unreliable technology and several assumptions. Despite adverse observations by the UIDAI’s biometrics standards committee on error rates of biometrics, the UIDAI is collecting biometrics information. LIMITED COVERAGE It is not clear that the UID Scheme would continue beyond the coverage of 200 million of the total population. The exercise could become futile in case the government does not give further mandate. LACK OF COORDINATION Serious differences of opinion within the government on the UID Scheme. The Department of Expenditure, ministry of finance, has expressed concern that lack of coordination among at least six agencies collecting information --National Population Registry, MNREGS, BPL Census, UIDAI, RSBY – is leading to duplication of efforts and expenditure. The Home Ministry has raised serious security concern over involvement of private agencies in large scale scheme. The Ministry of Planning has expressed reservation over the merits and functioning of the UIDAI and the necessity of collection of iris image. The National Informatics Centre has pointed out that issues relating to privacy and security of UID data could be better handled by storing in a government data centre.

Economic Times

[b555]

sad asses i spent 3 hours one day to get it done :wall:

[The Dark Horse]

sad asses i spent 3 hours one day to get it done :wall:

+1 :mad:

[Stuge]

Plus the amount of money required to keep the data saved will be quite large every year .

[ViruRulez]

One more of the messed up decisions. Instead of ending these things where years of work have been done it should be rectified and fixed. No offense but I am started to feel that we are fast turning into a sham and indisciplined democracy instead of improving. Every good thing goes back instead of progressing ahead. FDI and Jan Lokpal were other such recent events which could have been rectified properly instead of negating completely as it has been done. For example, in the FDI in retail, they could have made "quality" also a factor so that foreign brands do not flood Chinese goods. In addition, the nation and its people are becoming more and more hypocrites. We are starting censorship instead of democratic principles. To be honest, both India and US are becoming sham democracies. In the past, I used to say India is the best democracy in the world but it seems nearly all the democracies in the West and Europe are better than us. Nowadays, instead of working on future development and growth rate we seem to be looking at the achievements of the last decades. Not surprising that our growth rate is the lowest since a long time now and inflation is at an all time high. Costs of things including material things, food as well as properties etc. have increased by 2-3 in the last few years. But if the growth starts to decline then it will be even worse situation as the people as a whole would have less money to spend on goods with inflated costs. Sorry but there are several things going wrong right now with the nation. I never thought I would say that but it seems most countries in the world are in a better position than India now both in terms of democracy and in terms of living. And the sad part is that the govt. and political parties are just looking for their own benefits and plunging the nation into a load of ****. Take my words. Some serious problem would lie ahead of us in the next few years and we would be in deeper **** than we were in the 90s if things are not rectified soon.

[Sachin=GOD]

One more of the messed up decisions. Instead of ending these things where years of work have been done it should be rectified and fixed. No offense but I am started to feel that we are fast turning into a sham and indisciplined democracy instead of improving. Every good thing goes back instead of progressing ahead. FDI and Jan Lokpal were other such recent events which could have been rectified properly instead of negating completely as it has been done. For example' date= in the FDI in retail, they could have made "quality" also a factor so that foreign brands do not flood Chinese goods. In addition, the nation and its people are becoming more and more hypocrites. We are starting censorship instead of democratic principles. To be honest, both India and US are becoming sham democracies. In the past, I used to say India is the best democracy in the world but it seems nearly all the democracies in the West and Europe are better than us. Nowadays, instead of working on future development and growth rate we seem to be looking at the achievements of the last decades. Not surprising that our growth rate is the lowest since a long time now and inflation is at an all time high. Costs of things including material things, food as well as properties etc. have increased by 2-3 in the last few years. But if the growth starts to decline then it will be even worse situation as the people as a whole would have less money to spend on goods with inflated costs. Sorry but there are several things going wrong right now with the nation. I never thought I would say that but it seems most countries in the world are in a better position than India now both in terms of democracy and in terms of living. And the sad part is that the govt. and political parties are just looking for their own benefits and plunging the nation into a load of ****. Take my words. Some serious problem would lie ahead of us in the next few years and we would be in deeper **** than we were in the 90s if things are not rectified soon.

it hasn't ended. Its just that this bill has been rejected and a new improved bill which takes into consideration all the points raised by the committee will be made now. Why is it that people just have to suspect the Govt even if its doing something right?? This bill had lots of problems and therefore was rightly rejected.

[Raghav_12]

it hasn't ended. Its just that this bill has been rejected and a new improved bill which takes into consideration all the points raised by the committee will be made now.Why is it that people just have to suspect the Govt even if its doing something right?? This bill had lots of problems and therefore was rightly rejected.

It will quite a few years, may be a decade or so, until new thing decided upon. This is one technology based initiative which would have impacted common men more than any other initiative happened in long time. Unnecessary delay would push things back only.

[Sachin=GOD]

It will quite a few years may be a decade or so' date= until new thing decided upon. This is one technology based initiative which would have impacted common man more than any other initiative happened in long time. Unnecessary delay would push things back only.

Why?? IIRC the UID project was started about 2 years ago and already it was at the stage of a Bill being introduced in Parliament (if it wasn't rejected), so its gone extremely quickly for a project of its size and complexity and there's no reason to believe that the new bill will take a very long time. They don't have to start from the beginning this time - they only have to remove a few thing and improve a few others and sort out some inter departmental problems between various Govt ministries. I would much rather have a delay of few months than have a bill with lots of loopholes and problems which when implemented will only create further problems for the people.

[Sachin=GOD]

Aadhaar: time to disown the idea The government should pay heed to the parliamentary standing committee's views and suspend the Aadhaar project. It would be a travesty to push the project in through the backdoor.

"....The Committee categorically convey their unacceptability of the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010 the Committee would, thus, urge the Government to reconsider and review the UID scheme..." This was the conclusion of Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance (SCoF), which examined the Bill to convert the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) into a statutory authority. With this categorical rebuff, the SCoF dealt a body blow to the Aadhaar project, which is being implemented from September 2010 without Parliament's approval. Technically speaking, the SCoF report asked the government to bring forth fresh legislation before Parliament. However, a careful examination of the report shows that it does not just reject the Bill, it also raises serious questions about the idea of Aadhaar itself. In fact, the report so comprehensively questions the idea that any effort to introduce fresh legislation would require, as a prerequisite, a re-look at the foundational principles on which the project was conceived. There are broadly five important arguments in the SCoF report. First, it contains scathing criticism of the government for beginning Aadhaar enrolment without Parliament's approval for the Bill. Currently, UIDAI enjoys only executive authority, and no statutory authority. The justification that the government presented before the SCoF was as follows: the powers of the executive are co-extensive with the legislative powers of the government, and this allows the government to exercise executive powers in spheres not regulated by legislation. The government also cited the Attorney-General's advice, which noted that ŽÅŽÆxecutive power operates independently of Parliament and that there is nothing in law that prevents the [uIDAI] from functioning under the Executive Authorisation. The SCoF rejects this position, and states that the government's legal justification does not satisfy the Committee. The legal position upheld by the SCoF is that co-extensiveness of powers does not permit the executive to do what it pleases; when constitutional rights and protections are potentially violated, the powers of the executive remain circumscribed by those of the legislature. Secondly, the SCoF raises serious questions about the enrolment process followed for Aadhaar numbers. The issue of Aadhaar numbers is riddled with serious lacunae, and this problem can be traced to conceptualization. With no clarity of purpose and implementation in a directionless way with a lot of confusion. For instance, the Ministry of Finance felt that there was Lack of coordination across the six agencies collecting personal information, leading to duplication of efforts and expenditure. The Ministry of Home raised serious security concerns over the introducer model used to enrol persons without any proof of residence. The report concludes that the enrolment process compromises the security and confidentiality of information of Aadhaar number holders, and has far reaching consequences for national security. The reason: The possibility of possession of Aadhaar numbers by illegal residents through false affidavits/introducer system. Thirdly, the SCoF comes down heavily on the government for proceeding with the project without Enactment of a national data protection law, which is a pre-requisite for any law that deals with large-scale collection of information from individuals and its linkages across separate databases. In its submission to the SCoF, the government had taken a dismissive view of the right to privacy of individuals. It noted that collection of information without a privacy law in place does not violate the right to privacy of the individual. The SCoF rejects this view, and notes that in the absence of legislation for data protection, It would be difficult to deal with the issues like access and misuse of personal information, surveillance, profiling, linking and matching of databases and securing confidentiality of information. Fourthly, the report strongly disapproves of the hasty manner in which the project was cleared. It concludes that a comprehensive feasibility study ought to have been done before approving such an expensive scheme. This conclusion follows the government's admission to the SCoF that a committee has been constituted to study the financial implications of the UID scheme, and that comparative costs of the Aadhaar number and various existing ID documents are also not available. The total cost of the Aadhaar project would run into multiples of ten thousand crore of rupees. For just Phase 1 and 2, where 10 crore residents were to be enrolled, the allocation was Rs. 3,170 crore. For Phase 3, where another 10 crore residents are to be enrolled, the allocation is Rs. 8,861 crore. In a rough extrapolation, for 120 crore residents the total cost would then be over Rs. 72,000 crore. Is the Comptroller and Auditor General listening? Fifthly, the report tears apart the faith placed on biometrics to prove the unique identity of individuals. It notes that the scheme is full of uncertainty in technology and is built upon ŽÅŽÖntested, unreliable technology. It criticises the UIDAI for disregarding (a) the warnings of its Biometrics Standards Committee about high error rates in fingerprint collection; (b) the inability of Proof of Concept studies to promise low error rates when 1.2 billion persons are enrolled; and © the reservations within the government on the necessity of collection of IRIS image. The report concludes that, given the limitations of bio metrics, it is unlikely that the proposed objectives of the UID scheme could be achieved. The SCoF report cites the experience from the United Kingdom, where a similar ID scheme was shelved. It dismisses the government's contention that ŽÅŽÄomparison between developed countriesŽ©Ž×ersus IndiaŽ©ŽÊs not a reasonable one. It states that ŽÅŽÕhere are lessons from the global experience to be learnt, which the government has ŽÅŽÊgnored completely. It cites issues of cost overruns, fallacies of technology and risks to the safety of citizens, and notes: ŽÅŽÂs these findings are very much relevant and applicable to the UID scheme, they should have been seriously considered. The SCoF report has invited sharp reactions from the business press and pro-business lobbies. One report argued that, after the Foreign Direct Investment-in-retail fiasco, it is another Indian reform massacre; for another, it is a setback to the government's attempts to revive faltering economic reforms; and for yet another, the title was "UPA's reforms agenda hit again". These predictable reactions only reaffirm the widely held belief that Aadhaar is an integral component of the neo-liberal reform programme of UPA-2. In fact, the SCoF deserves praise for standing up to pressure from powerful quarters, and not allowing the moment to be hijacked by vested interests. Ironically, till last week, the same SCoF had come in for profuse praise from none other than Nandan Nilekani himself. He had said in August 2011: I have had the occasion to make a presentation on more than one occasion to the Standing Committee ŽÃet me tell you they do an extraordinarily thorough job. I am very, very impressed with the quality of questions, the homework, the due diligence, the seriousness that they view these things with. And it is very bipartisan, you can't make out who is from which party because they all ask on the issue. So when you have such an excellent system of law-making...Let us respect that, let us give them the opportunity to call all the experts for and against and let them come out with something. They are the appropriate people, they are our representatives. The representatives have now spoken. For the government, the most dignified way ahead is to pay heed to the SCoF's views and suspend the Aadhaar project immediately. Each conclusion in the report should be discussed threadbare in the public domain. Biometrics should be withdrawn from government projects as a proof of identity. Alternative, and cheaper, measures to provide people with valid identity proofs should be explored. However, it would be a travesty of democratic principles if the government disregards the SCoF report and pushes the project in through the backdoor.

The Hindu

[achilles]

After spending close to 600 crores, our MPs wake up one day to the realization that this project has loopholes?

[Raghav_12]

Good Article S=G. Haven't dealt myself enough with these matters, so can't really comment on how valid/invalid or how serious/frivolous these objections are. My take is that if you are going to implement a project of this scale, there will always be lacunae, at times serious also. You can not go ahead with creation of such huge, all-encompassing database without having something falling apart here or there or somebody having serious objections. That's where government commitment towards the cause plays a crucial role. Government's will power will always be critical for implementation of this ambitious initiative, be it today or after preparation of 10 years. And any kind of will power is not something which you can associate with this weak government. By the way any idea who are the members of this standing commitee (SCoF)? This is second time within a fortnight when government is going back on it's own ambitious initiatives. without counting relatively smaller matters of rollback of petrol prices etc.

[Sachin=GOD]

Good Article S=G. Haven't dealt myself enough with these matters, so can't really comment on how valid/invalid or how serious/frivolous these objections are. My take is that if you are going to implement a project of this scale, there will always be lacunae, at times serious also. You can not go ahead with creation of such huge, all-encompassing database without having something falling apart here or there or somebody having serious objections. That's where government commitment towards the cause plays a crucial role. Government's will power will always be critical for implementation of this ambitious initiative, be it today or after preparation of 10 years. And any kind of will power is not something which you can associate with this weak government. By the way any idea who are the members of this standing commitee (SCoF)? This is second time within a fortnight where government is going back on it's own ambitious initiatives. without counting relatively smaller matters of rollback of petrol prices etc.

Its headed by BJP's Yashwant Sinha and its members are - Link - go into "composition in this link to check out the rest of the members.

[Raghav_12]

Its headed by BJP's Yashwant Sinha and its members are - Link - go into "composition in this link to check out the rest of the members.

Link doesn't work for me

[Sachin=GOD]

Link doesn't work for me

[Raghav_12]

Thanks, but somehow some of the images in ICF threads are not visible in office :((. So can't see the names. But no probs, will check once I am at home. Thanks a lot.

[akshayxyz]

Good Article S=G. Haven't dealt myself enough with these matters, so can't really comment on how valid/invalid or how serious/frivolous these objections are. My take is that if you are going to implement a project of this scale, there will always be lacunae, at times serious also. You can not go ahead with creation of such huge, all-encompassing database without having something falling apart here or there or somebody having serious objections. That's where government commitment towards the cause plays a crucial role. Government's will power will always be critical for implementation of this ambitious initiative, be it today or after preparation of 10 years. And any kind of will power is not something which you can associate with this weak government. By the way any idea who are the members of this standing commitee (SCoF)? This is second time within a fortnight when government is going back on it's own ambitious initiatives. without counting relatively smaller matters of rollback of petrol prices etc.

This. What matters is - the end goal / purpose of the project i.e. having a centralized unique ids, once the system is in place - it will solve many of the current governance issues - in other words, it is a must-have to have smooth governance. The project should not be scrapped just because there are obstacles, objections. fix them, and keep moving ahead towards the end goal.