Aadhaar

As we had often come back to discussing economic benefits/impact of sports I thought it was about time for an economic discussion forum.
User avatar
kujo
Authors
Authors
Posts: 3040
Joined: Fri Jun 18, 2004 11:26 pm

Aadhaar

Post by kujo »

Nice article arguing against the Aadhaar project: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/ar ... epage=true
“It is estimated that approximately five per cent of any population has unreadable fingerprints, either due to scars or aging or illegible prints. In the Indian environment, experience has shown that the failure to enrol is as high as 15 per cent due to the prevalence of a huge population dependent on manual labour.”
A 15 per cent failure rate would mean the exclusion of over 200 million people. If fingerprint readers are installed at Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) work sites and ration shops, and employment or purchases made contingent on correct authentication, about 200 million persons would remain permanently excluded from accessing such schemes.
May be they expect retina scanners to be made available at these works sites and ration shops?!
User avatar
jayakris
Moderators
Moderators
Posts: 34750
Joined: Mon Dec 16, 2002 7:24 am
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5
Location: Irvine, CA, USA
Has thanked: 9 times
Been thanked: 1 time
Contact:

Re: Aadhaar

Post by jayakris »

Academic mumbo-jumbo. The professor needed a paper/article to go into his resume. You must distrust anything that a professor writes on his chosen field :) ...

Ok, I am half-kidding. But really, the professor does not give an argument on how the card causes such national calamity, and why NOT having the card is a better thing. We can only use the technology that is available. Better than nothing for sure, and it can hopefully get better over time. At least we will have the younger people before their fingerprints are all gone from labor etc, identified. Over a period of time, it should work. He makes a wrong parallel about something that went wrong in UK. Different population, different concerns that caused public outcry. He didn't say what would go wrong in India. Is there a public outcry already?

I don't believe that the 15% error rate quoted is correct, If so, finger prints would not be used for criminal cases for so long. Something is odd there, and I need to look it up to see if the professor is fudging something. How does 200million being out of the registry become better than 1000million not identified? The poor would be the ones who would not get the ration supplies or something? Something like that would be asking for serious social trouble that no government can allow, and I am sure there can be remedial measures taken for that. The prof does not get into any of this. The people who are working on this scheme are not idiots, even if ONE professor thinks he knows better.

Academicians like to complain about something or other and NOT talk about the angles against their pet theses. I speak from experience, you know :)

By the way, for full disclosure, I am speaking about a topic on which I have only read one article. This one. That never stops an academician from commenting, which also you know :)

Jay
User avatar
PKBasu
Member
Member
Posts: 36869
Joined: Fri Jan 03, 2003 6:04 pm
Please enter the middle number: 1
Location: New Delhi / Kolkata
Been thanked: 8 times

Re: Aadhaar

Post by PKBasu »

Indian academics can always be found to find fault with any scheme. The concerted campaign against the UID/Aadhar is painful to observe...
I live in Singapore, where everybody has an identity card with a finger-print at the back of the card. When I come in and out of Singapore, I present my machine-readable Indian passport to a card-reader, and present my thumb to another machine -- which recognizes me from the finger-print, welcoming me by name! If finger-print technology is recognised by Singapore as being fool-proof, I don't see why we should be expressing so much angst about its introduction in India.
dmehra
Member
Member
Posts: 184
Joined: Tue Oct 19, 2004 10:34 pm
Please enter the middle number: 1
Location: New York, NY

Re: Aadhaar

Post by dmehra »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9izUKE5bN0U

This is India's ex IT commissioner -- only a 4min clip but you have to listen to the whole thing to get to comments on Aadhar. Lets just say that I have no comment.
User avatar
PKBasu
Member
Member
Posts: 36869
Joined: Fri Jan 03, 2003 6:04 pm
Please enter the middle number: 1
Location: New Delhi / Kolkata
Been thanked: 8 times

Re: Aadhaar

Post by PKBasu »

I had a good 40 minute meeting with Nandan Nilekani a week ago in his Delhi office. India is in very good hands with him.

The UID project is easily the largest one of its kind anywhere. Each person's card will have 12 pieces of biometric information (10 finger prints, and the two eyes). The US foreigner ID system covers 120m people with 3-5 pieces of information (2-4 fingers -- I can't quite remember -- and one iris); this covers 1.2bn people, with even more information. I heard from people in Mumbai that getting one's UID is a breeze: you go into the office, and everything is done in 10 minutes. But Nandan told me that the focus has now shifted entirely to rural areas (while temporarily suspending urban registrations) in order to be able to target subsidies, etc. to the rural (then urban) poor more effectively.

They have already enrolled about 33mn people, and are now enrolling at the rate of 0.5mn a day! A critical mass of 350mn people (residents of India) should be covered by end-2012. It will clearly be transformative -- although Nandan says he cannot be sure of 100% certainty in unique identifications, but tests have shown 99% accuracy is likely (not bad, compared to what we now have in India!). When it is done, there will be lots of information available about all India's residents, and virtually all will have a bank account (which itself will dramatically expand financial inclusion). The delivery of subsidies can be targeted, saving the government billions annually -- IF the political will exists to use the system effectively.
User avatar
jaydeep
Moderators
Moderators
Posts: 23792
Joined: Wed Aug 18, 2004 8:59 am
Please enter the middle number: 1
Location: India

Re: Aadhaar

Post by jaydeep »

Thanks PKB for sharing this info about ur meeting with Nandan Nilekani.

May be in some places applying for UID is a breeze but not everywhere ... They allocated UID work to some NGOs/ private agencies ... They work from some corporation schools, for applying u need to go around 6 am (not joking) to stand in the line ... At that time u will get only forms (they don't allow u to download the form from the site) ... Then u need to fill it and submit them around 8 am and if ur number is inside top 75 forms then ur form will be accepted on the same day otherwise they tell u the date ... But now applying UID is also available in nationlised banks so account holders of the branch can apply for their ... Huge improvement.
User avatar
prasen9
Member
Member
Posts: 19122
Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2003 8:49 pm
Please enter the middle number: 1
Location: State College, PA
Has thanked: 25 times
Been thanked: 8 times
Contact:

Re: Aadhaar

Post by prasen9 »

Are there any studies of the estimated benefits? How easy is it to fraudulently associate a person with an ID not his/her own?
User avatar
Varma
Member
Member
Posts: 2487
Joined: Wed Aug 18, 2004 2:49 am
Please enter the middle number: 1
Location: Irvine, CA, USA

Re: Aadhaar

Post by Varma »

The task of getting applications and corresponding details from people in rural areas is being outsourced and these agencies are paid by numbers. Educating people in rural areas to come and apply for UID is a huge task. Most of them can't understand the real long term benefits of it. Besides, they are all busy working from dawn to dusk to make their living. Sacrificing a day's work (or even a few hours) wouldn't be pragmatic for them. Because of this, there is a high chance of these agencies cooking up data to make up numbers and get their share. In this wake, validating the data collected from remote/rural areas is a big challenge. The government needs to formulate good baseline standards to fight such scenarios.

- Varma
User avatar
prasen9
Member
Member
Posts: 19122
Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2003 8:49 pm
Please enter the middle number: 1
Location: State College, PA
Has thanked: 25 times
Been thanked: 8 times
Contact:

Re: Aadhaar

Post by prasen9 »

Yet another governmental waste? It looks nice in theory, but, it seems there are many problems to implementing it well.
User avatar
Varma
Member
Member
Posts: 2487
Joined: Wed Aug 18, 2004 2:49 am
Please enter the middle number: 1
Location: Irvine, CA, USA

Re: Aadhaar

Post by Varma »

prasen9 wrote:Yet another governmental waste? It looks nice in theory, but, it seems there are many problems to implementing it well.
With the population that we have and the diversity of its nature, it's not possible to have a quick solution that fits all. I think it is a good start and as long as amendments are made to it, there is fair chance that it will come to good use for majority of the population within the next few years.

- Varma
User avatar
prasen9
Member
Member
Posts: 19122
Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2003 8:49 pm
Please enter the middle number: 1
Location: State College, PA
Has thanked: 25 times
Been thanked: 8 times
Contact:

Re: Aadhaar

Post by prasen9 »

I don't need a perfect thing. If the benefits are more than the costs, I will be fine. I have not seen a reasonable document outlining the benefits ... But, I have also not searched too hard.
User avatar
suresh
Member
Member
Posts: 7879
Joined: Thu May 22, 2003 12:08 pm
Please enter the middle number: 1
Location: Chennai, IN

Re: Aadhaar

Post by suresh »

I view it as a 21st century version of the ration card. Hopefully, it will provide an improved means of channeling government aid to the poor. I don't have a ration card even though I applied for one several years ago -- never got it. It could be because I refused "chai paise" to the guy who came to check things. I hope I will be able to get this one.
User avatar
PKBasu
Member
Member
Posts: 36869
Joined: Fri Jan 03, 2003 6:04 pm
Please enter the middle number: 1
Location: New Delhi / Kolkata
Been thanked: 8 times

Re: Aadhaar

Post by PKBasu »

The UID project is facing relentless political pressure. They had enrolled 58 million people by end-October, but the attacks from Left and Right are getting more heated, with other government departments also raising spurious objections (and claiming they have the ability to create a similar ID system; utter bogus nonsense!).

The government was hoping to target the food, fertilizer and other subsidies more accurately using the UID, and extending banking services to the 600-700mn Indians who are not yet part of the formal financial system. Everything seems to be up in the air now, as this feckless PM is failing to provide any political cover even for this vital project.
User avatar
Sandeep
Moderators
Moderators
Posts: 10722
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2003 4:21 pm
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5
Been thanked: 1 time
Contact:

Re: Aadhaar

Post by Sandeep »

UPA-2 has been an abject failure, no guts at all to take any decision. But I can see a point in what opposition are saying about the UID. It should have never been given to private agencies in the first place! If a private agency can create an UID card why can't I do it sitting at home? They are not given any special equipment that no one has access to!! Entire equipment is available in the shop. Isn't it silly.

I got my UID and I was surprised at how it was done. A private agency with a rented premises and a laptop is creating a card for me!! And the worst part I don't even know if the agency is authorized, there is no effort whatsoever to educate who the authentic agency is. Where is the security for my database?
bhagatghavri
Member
Member
Posts: 38
Joined: Sat Mar 15, 2014 6:10 am
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5
Contact:

Re: Aadhaar

Post by bhagatghavri »

I think If aadhaar policy iwill be mplement with proper way hope It will be successful and give some benefits.
Post Reply