RS Sharma is currently working as Chief Secretary for Government of Jharkhand State in India. He was formerly Director General & Mission Director of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) where he was responsible for implementing thieambitious and challenging project undertaken by the Government of India for providing unique Identification to all its Residents. Prior to this assignment Mr. Sharma worked with the Government of Jharkhand as Principal Secretary of the IT Department, where was responsible for formulation of State policies in the IT and e-Governance areas. RS Sharma has held important positions both in the Government of India and State Governments in the past and has been deeply involved in the administrative reforms and leveraging IT to simplify the administrative processes.
Applying unique ID for societal development through extended eGovernment
Over the past four years, India has undertaken the gigantic task of laying an infrastructure and creating a robust platform for public service delivery to its citizens. Sustainable Development spoke to RS Sharma to learn more on how India is creating an identity platform in the country, which is inclusive, improving governance and service delivery. In addiiton we asked how the unique identifier, Aadhaar, enables people to access formal systems of service delivery to provide financial and social inclusion.
What is the background to the UIDAI project and in particular the unique ID number Aadhaar?
In India, there are a large number of people who do not have any formal proof of their identity. This has results in denial of a number of services to them. They cannot open a bank-account, they cannot get reservation in a train and they cannot get any mobile connection as some identity documents are necessary to avail these services. In other words, non-possession of any ID document disables them from accessing many services.
Aadhaar is a 12 digit individual identification number issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India on behalf of the Government of India. This number will serve as a proof of identity and address, anywhere in India.
Any individual, irrespective of age and gender, who is a resident in India and satisfies the verification process laid down by the UIDAI can enrol for Aadhaar. Each individual needs to enroll only once which is free of cost. Each Aadhaar number will be unique to an individual and will remain valid for life. Aadhaar number will help you provide access to services like banking, mobile phone connections and other government and non-government services in due course.
I believe that this will fundamentally transform the way we deliver services. The reach of mobile, developments in biometric technology, connected systems and supporting technology are at such a stage which makes this possible. I think it is an idea whose time has come and we should seize this opportunity to implement it well. Aadhaar fills this gap as it is mandated to provide unique identity to all the residents of the country. In course of last couple of years, Aadhaar has also been recognized as a valid document for accessing many services including those mentioned above. Secondly, its capability of online authentication anywhere enables delivery of services more accessible, cost effective and transparent. Banking services can now be delivered at the doorstep of customers through business correspondences (BCs) using mobile devices, which can authenticate identity using Aadhaar authentication. Lastly, its uniqueness property is very useful in eliminating duplicates and fakes from many subsidy/benefit delivery domains as multiple and fake identities in domains like (PDS, Social Security pensions) contributes towards leakages and corruption in these programs.
How is Aadhaar used in terms of providing a financial conduit for Indian citizens?
Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) refers to a situation where the benefit, which can be any benefit – subsidy, wages, scholarship or pension – is transferred to the beneficiaries’ account using Aadhaar as financial address. Aadhaar helps in this area in the following manner. Firstly, you can use Aadhaar to open a bank account, if you do not have one. Secondly, it uses Aadhaar as the address to transfer money. It ensures that the money goes into your account only. Thirdly, using Aadhaar authentication, you can withdraw your money – thus facilitating banking at your door-step. It also ensures that only you can draw the money – as it requires your presence and finger-prints at the time of withdrawal. Lastly, it provides an end-to-end tracking of the money from the time of crediting into one’s account till the withdrawal. This simplifies the utilization certificate (UC) issue as now we do not need any further certificate from anybody regarding the use of the money. The money has been successfully transferred to the beneficiary’s account.
One of the least understood and transformational aspect of DBT and Aadhaar Enabled Service Delivery is the ‘portability’ which it offers to the customers. You must be hearing about the LPG portability. Let me explain how portability, which means giving the power to the customer to choose the service-provider changes the power equations and strikes on the very cause of corruption and rent-seeking.
If you are a ration card holder getting food at subsidized prices and your FP dealer was not giving you the ration, what do you do? You complain to the supply inspector, members of the vigilance committee and it does not work? You go without your ration and the FP dealer goes on with his/her business! On the other hand, suppose you had the freedom of choosing your fair-price shop dealer? If your village FP shop dealer was not dispensing ration to you, you could have got it from the nearby village’s FP dealer. In fact, the portability will allow you to get it from any dealer of the state. If you have a ration card and you have migrated from Dumka to Ranchi, you will be able to get the ration at subsidized cost from any shop anywhere in the State. Current technology and model does not support it. But Aadhaar enabled PDS will be able to ensure this as now your identity and ration eligibility is on-line! You could, similarly get your MNREGA wages from any business correspondent in the State – similar to the ways in which you are able to swipe you debit card in any ATM of any bank and get the money irrespective of the issuer bank.
Choice to the customers – especially in an asymmetric relationship where the service provider is far more powerful than the individual – is extremely liberating and transformational. It will change the power-equations in favor of the customers which will certainly reduce corruption and rent-seeking. Some examples of portability which have happened are mobile number portability and now LPG portability. Aadhaar proposes to bring this portability in areas where it was not possible hitherto due to technology reasons. Of course, one must not lose sight of the push-back which one can expect from the groups who are expected to be affected adversely!
Government benefits from this in two ways. Firstly, the duplicates and fakes are eliminated, cleaning the delivery system. Government can now benefit more people with these savings. Secondly, if it is a subsidy domain (like LPG cylinder at subsidized rates), then the dual pricing goes away and there is no scope for diversion of subsidized cylinders to non-subsidized usage (like in hotels and restaurants). Just to give you an idea of the extent of subsidy misuse in LPG (through diversion and multiple connections) is estimated to be of the order of 15,000 crores per annum! This leakage is expected to reduce to almost zero after implementing the DBT in the entire country.
How does UIDAI function and maintain the huge database of Aadhaar?
UIDAI is an attached office of the Planning Commission and has been tasked with issuing unique IDs to the residents of India. It is structured as an Authority headed by a Chairman. Director General and Mission Director is the Chief Executive Officer of this body. It has a few hundred people working full time – about half of them are government officers on deputation and the rest half are professionals from various domains like IT, Management and process experts.
UIDAI has, in the last four years that it has been in existence, has created a very robust eco-System which ensures implementation of this project in a time-bound manner. There are many partners in this eco-system like the State Governments, enrolment agencies, certification agencies, device vendors, software companies, printers, India Post, and Banks etc.
At the technology level, UIDAI has one of the most sophisticated technology infrastructures in the world as it processes data of residents at a scale never done in the world before. It uses sophisticated algorithms of de-duplication (both demographic and biometric). It has used open source technologies which are generally more robust and also cheaper.
Are there specific measures undertaken with regard to data protection?
ous threats like hacking, stealing of data and other cyber-attack exist. However, the only way in this context is to take adequate care to minimize the risk of these threats. UIDAI has taken the best possible measures to ensure safety of their data through state-of- art technology tools and methods.
Some other novel practices, which the UIDAI has introduced, are keeping only that data online which is needed for functioning of UIDAI and keep the important data off-line. Biometric data (Finger Prints and Iris scans) is a case in point. After extraction of features from the biometric data, the raw images are kept off-line and are out of bounds for any hacker. Only features are needed for de-duplication.
Another principle, which has been consistently and strictly adhered to, is the encryption of the data. No data in UIDAI data-centre remains in un-encrypted form. Then there are strict physical controls on access. Given all these techniques and processes, I am very confident to say that the data of the residents of India is fully safe with UIDAI.
Is the system open to misuse by illegal migrants?
not of eligibility. This is a unique ID platform in the world where the concepts of identity and eligibility have been logically separated. Till now, we have no pure ID document. A driving license, voter ID card, BPL card or MNREGA job card are all primarily eligibility documents which authorize/enable a person to drive, vote or get subsidies etc.
Your passport is your ID document which is also a document proving your nationality. In absence of any pure ID document, these documents double up as a general purpose ID documents, which enable you, say an entry in the airport. ID is inextricably linked with eligibility in these documents.
In Aadhaar lingo, these are all ‘applications’ built over your identity. From this point, UIDAI has said from the very beginning that Aadhaar is only a proof of identity. It says that X is X. It also has the infrastructure to prove that X is X ( through online authentication). Aadhaar is not a proof of citizenship or domicile. It does not say anything about your eligibility to get subsidized ration or any other benefits. Hence it does not guarantee entitlements. Hence, it is not appropriate from UIDAI to expect to carry out a citizenship check about the person before enrolling him/her into Aadhaar. Indeed, like other ‘applications’, citizenship is also an ‘application’ which can be built on top of Aadhaar. As all the existing IDs are physical/paper IDs, it is possible to have multiple identities for one person having different attributes.
For insurance purpose, you become young to get a policy at low premium and for train travel you can become (with the help of another document) a senior citizen, to avail of concession meant for such category! In Aadhaar world, as you have only one ID residing on the ‘cloud’, there is only a single and consistent source of truth.
In your opinion, is there a case for public-private collaboration in India through the introduction of Aadhaar?
believe Aadhaar will have a huge liberating effect on the service delivery scenario. It will make service delivery agencies more accountable to the customers as portability will shift the power-balance in favor of the customers.
For the private sector, it will reduce to cost of transactions. For example, electronic Know Your Customers (eKYC) will enable people to open instant accounts in the banks and get instant mobile connections. Consider just one service domain: getting a mobile connection. With eKYC, there will be no need for submitting ID papers, Xeroxing them and submitting them to the service providers and for service providers to store them in large godowns. Your connection will be instantly activated. It will reduce the cost of storage and photo-copying to the mobile company. Most importantly, it will help in security as your ID papers cannot be now misused to get mobile connection to some undesirable person. Once you have such reduction in transaction costs, some of it will certainly be passed on to the customers. It will help in reducing unnecessary transaction costs to the economy.
Similarly, use of micro-ATMS will result in less cash as you will be able to pay to the village grocer who is also the BC of a bank through your bank account ( peer to peer transfer) and less transaction cost to the banks and poor people ( no transportation costs to travel to the banks). Hence it is expected that use of Aadhaar enabled payment Services (AEPS) has the potential to contribute towards increasing the GDP of the country. It is expected that eliminating cash substantially can contribute as much as .5% growth of the GPD.
Thus, in my view, Aadhaar is expected to bring about substantial benefits to all the stakeholders in the economy, which is synonymous with the growth of the country.