Nilekani’s UID budget slashed

The Unique Identification Authority of India had sought Rs 6,734 crore from the government for the first phase of the scheme. But a government committee has slashed the budget of the project by half, approving only Rs 3,000 crore, which could slow down its implementation. Chetan Chauhan reports. Funds halved, cover reduced

Updated on: Jul 10, 2010, 09:38:00 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A government committee has slashed the budget of the high-flying unique identification project by half, which could slow down its implementation.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), also called Aadhar, had sought Rs 6,734 crore from the government for the first phase of it scheme to provide citizens with unique identification numbers (UIDs), in the next four years. But, the finance ministry’s expenditure finance committee (EFC), at a recent meeting, decided to allocate only about Rs 3,000 crore.

According to official sources, a key segment of the UIDAI’s proposal — to give incentives worth Rs 3,200 crore for registering residents for the scheme — has been scrapped.

“The committee felt there was no need to give cash incentive to registrars,” a government official said.

“I am not aware of any such development,” UIDAI chairperson Nandan Nilekani said.

The official said the view at the meeting was that most Indians would automatically go for the 12-digit UID once the government links several benefits to it. For instance, the government has already announced citizens will need UIDs to be beneficiaries of schemes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and Public Distribution System. Hence, there was no need for further incentives.

The UIDAI, in its proposal to the EFC, had suggested incentives to UID registrars — which would be government bodies — to attract people. One idea was to provide a bank account with an opening balance of

Rs 100 to a person who seeks a UID and give another Rs 100 to the registrar.

The first set of UIDs for public distribution system is scheduled to roll out in Andhra Pradesh by October.

This isn’t the first time that bureaucrats have opposed a UIDAI proposal. Earlier, there was resistance to including iris scan as a biometric requirement for getting a UID due to its high cost and low utility. But, Nilekani was able to convince the government on this count.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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