Unique Identification Number (UID) and National Population Register

Unique Identification Number (UID) and National Population Register.

Since Nandan Nilkeni became the Tsar of the Unique Identification Authority of India, the corporate world, Urban Outsourced Generation (UOG) & GOI have all been enamored of the project. As if social responsibility schemes of the government didn’t function as intended because the poor couldn’t be identified with certainty without an UID.  

Any system however foolproof may finally be operated by ‘malevolent fools’, who can abuse it if it lacks transparency, oversight, & active participation of citizens/ populace. Aruna Roy, Sandeep Pande, and many others have shown how the proverbially leaking National Rural employment Guarantee Scheme can be plugged and disabused through social audit and local vigilance. 

The leaks in public distribution system (PDS) or ration shops have been stopped in one district by creation of people’s vigilance squad around every ration shop and informing them through SMS as soon as a truck leaves from the main distribution warehouses for the ration shop and ensuring a reply SMS upon its arrival. RTI act has become an efficacious tool in the hands of many public spirited citizens to right the wrongs in the system. 

Thus UID cannot be a panacea for all evils and if subverted it can be a frightening instrument itself of evil in the hands of those so willed & in power.