Bill of dispute

With the parliamentary standing committee on finance expressing some reservations about the National Identification Authority of India Bill, the unique identity number project, which has already done some work, has run into fresh trouble.

The home ministry had already raised questions about the security of the data collected by the Aadhar project, and home minister P Chidambaram had written to the prime minister about the ministry’s apprehensions. The standing committee wants the government to redraft the bill which provides the legal basis for the authority. The authority, headed by Nandan Nilekani, has already issued over six crore identity cards. The aim is to provide a single identity card to every Indian in the next few years and avoid the need for multiple cards.

Some of the concerns raised by the committee and the home ministry are valid and need to be addressed. Obviously, there is duplication of work when the home ministry’s National Population Register (NPR) is also engaged in the same exercise. Data collection by NPR is considered to be more rigorous and less expensive.

The UID is expected to spend about Rs 18,000 crore to collect data on all residents while the NPR might need only about one-third of that amount. Both the exercises involve collection of biometric data and there are controversies about their need and reliability.

The efficiency of data collection also has been questioned. Issues connected with privacy are another area of concern. There is still no agreement on who should be covered under the programme. While the UID plans to issue cards to every resident, the parliamentary panel would like the project to be confined only to citizens. This is because there is much scope for misuse, as there are millions of illegal residents in the country and social security programmes are all intended to be implemented on the basis of the identity numbers of the beneficiaries.

The government is not bound to accept the committee’s recommendations. But the bill needs to be drafted again in view of the reservations and apprehensions which have come out into the public realm. It should be noted that it is not the idea of a unique identity number that is being questioned.

The concern is over how the process is being undertaken now. Even the government seems to be divided on the matter. It should have settled all legal, procedural and other issues earlier.