This house does not believe in the creation of a Unique identity number for every resident in India.


Moderator’s Statement

The Government proposes a Unique Identification Number to come in place, take charge and create legitimate identity. There have been takers to this issue, a number of them who agree that this is in fact going to be the change they want to see in the trickle down of benefits from the centre towards the ‘aam aadmi’. Medha Bhaskar is one such person, who argues that investment of the taxpayer’s money in the UID mission now can easily save a lot of money in the future. Pitted against her is Vishnu who thinks that the prime need of today’s India is education, health and sanitation and has a list of questions which do not get along well with the so called fleckless model by many. Will there really be a trickle-down of benefits at least through this scheme? Am I being geo-tagged? Is it just identity that is the need of the hour? How can I be who I really am, will the 16-digit magic number suffice?

These questions lie at the heart of our present debate. This virtual house wishes to draw opinions from either party with the help of related comments from the floor. So, don’t just sit there, start talking (well, typing)

We thank the participants and the visitors for making the debate engaging and constructive.




Vishnu V

For the motion

Closing Statements

To conclude, the ID card project of the UPA government appears to be missing the grade on most criteria. The scheme is extraordinarily expensive. There are so many imponderables about technology, size and cost that is not wise for a poor country like ours. There is an unrealistic assumption behind the project that technology can be used to fix the ills of social inefficiencies. The benefits from the project, in terms of ‘targeting the poor’, appear to be limited. With so many uncertainties the question is ‘are we not leaping in the dark?’

The revenue generation scheme for this project is without doubt inappropriate. Finger print authentication is not fool proof and the widespread utility of biometric readers is limited. Through our discussion it was clear that the universal coverage of this project and hence the possible benefits from it most probably will remain only on papers. The feasibility of continuously updating the biometric data of 1.2 billion people is also questionable. My opponent kept her mouth shut on most of these issues.

The argument that LSE report has no relevance in Indian scenario is baseless. If the findings of LSE hold in UK, then it will definitely apply for India as well. The question is if the developed countries cannot tackle the issues in the implementation of this project, how is it possible for India? While accepting that preventing terrorism is the legitimate role of the state, the doubt still remains on whether ID cards would prevent terror attacks through identity theft.

I’m not arguing against any form of electronic management of data or provision of services. It may certainly be useful to have an identity card for citizens, which can be made use of in any part of the country for identification as well as for availing themselves of certain minimum benefits. But our country is now not in a position to implement this project as the problems in its implementation heavily outweighs the few benefits that are likely to follow. The question is when we have several key issues like illiteracy, poverty, sanitation etc to be addressed, is it wise to spend such a huge amount on a project with ‘high cost and high risk’?

Medha Bhaskar

Against the motion

Closing Statements

The implementation of the UID is more tuned to the spirit of the times – e-governance. While the idea of it has been mooted by the Govt from the past 6 years, the establishment of the UIDAI is a bold step by the Planning Commission is a bold step taking towards it. It is, as I’ve reiterated through the course of the debate, a much needed move. It facilitates better delivery of the public distribution systems, it provides for a better security mechanism. With all of this, it cuts down on the paper work, and eases the cumbersome process of providing proof.  It is therefore, a need of the hour. The installation of the UID system will take India a long way.


January 11th, 2010

Responses for and against the motion

  1. vishnu Says:
    January 14th, 2010 at 12:30 AM

    Get out of the text book defenitions Ms.Medha. Hope you got a better idea of how misuse of these UID cards can happen after reading my response to your questions (you can call it corruption or whatever).
    I’m not advocationg against UID just because it takes alot of time for its implementation. Please try to visualize the issue as a whole. As long as having a UID number is not mandatory a large section of the people remain outside scheme, and as long as this situation persists the benefits of the scheme will be never seen. As a result the universal coverage of the scheme remain as an unachieveable task.

  2. vishnu Says:
    January 14th, 2010 at 12:44 AM

    The object of UID is not just to establish the leagal identity of a person (as you have stated). If it were so then spending 1.5 lakh crore for this would have been totally pointless. A major intention of implementing UID is ‘targetting benefits’ to aam-aadmi. But the problem in targeted welfare schemes is of eligibility and not of identity. The varying numbers of BPL families in the country is not a problem of inability to identify the uniqueness of an individual but of his/her eligibility based on different criteria such as income, nutrition (calories), other wellness indicators.

  3. vishnu Says:
    January 14th, 2010 at 12:54 AM

    You totally missed out my last question on the study report of LSE on the troubles of implementation of a similar program in UK. I’ll put that on to you once again.

    Quoting the concluding statement of the report “…identity systems may create a range of new and unforeseen problems. These include the failure of systems, unforeseen financial costs, increased security threats and unacceptable imposition on citizens. The success of a national identity system depends on a sensitive, cautious and cooperative approach involving all key stakeholder groups, including an independent and rolling risk assessment and a regular review of management practices. We are not confident that these conditions have been satisfied in the development of the Identity Cards Bill. The risk of failure in the current proposals is therefore magnified to the point where the scheme should be regarded as a potential danger to the public interest and to the legal rights of individuals.”…LSE clearly pointed out that there are sure chances of hacking into the privacy of the individuals and creation of fake identities .If this is the case in Britain how do you respond to similar issues in country like India?

  4. Aniket Singh Says:
    January 14th, 2010 at 12:57 PM

    The criteria for registration as a voter is very tedious. The concept of ‘domicile’ in India needs to be changed. It should not be restricted to your place of permanent residence. Recently Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh announced that even NRIs would get to vote by 2011. The initiative to provide all residents with a Unique Id Card or biometric may help to ease the electoral process as well.

  5. Medha! Says:
    January 14th, 2010 at 11:20 PM

    The problems that you mention find no relevance as far as UID goes as, like I have said in my rebuttal, they have a revenue system that is going to generate the money required to fund the project.

    Tell me this – are you going to stop using the internet, your email id, which lets presume has a lot of information about you just because there is a chance it will get hacked? Are you going to advocate sticking to snail mail as the official means of communication because 35% of the population is illiterate? Lets take a much more realistic example, something that is much closer to the issue at hand – do you advocate a ballot box and paper instead of the electronic machines?? Do you want India to attain 100% literacy before we progress into the “technological era”?

    Okie, you contest that the main object of the UID is to ‘targetting benefits’ to aam-aadmi. How is that done? By identifying the person and is status (not social). This is what “LEGAL” identity means, not the uniqueness of the individual. This includes his lifestyle, his income, his nutrition etc. All of this constitutes legal identity of the person.

    Yes, there exists a risk of people hacking into the system. But you must consider that Nandan Nilekani, was the chairman of a pioneer company in the IT capital of the world. Further Bill Gates wants to collaborate with the UIDAI. Quoting the LSE paper, “The success of a national identity system depends on a sensitive, cautious and cooperative approach involving all key stakeholder groups, including an independent and rolling risk assessment and a regular review of management practices.” Further, the report goes on to say that the conditions have not been met in the development of the ID cards in UK, NOT in India. The people involved are the best brains in the IT business.

    About the security concerns. As the LSE report claims, “prevention of terrorism may be more effectively managed through strengthened border patrols and increased presence at borders, or allocating adequate resources for conventional police intelligence work”. Firstly, let me give you the statistics. India has a coastline of 7600 kms. The Indo-Bangaldesh border is 4023 kms long; The Indo-Pak is about 1200 kms long; The Sino-Indian border is 4000 kms long. It is next to impossible to strengthen border patrol and increase presence at borders expect it to be effective. Especially in the light of the Pakistani terrorist infiltrating into the country. In this scenario too, UID has its benefits.

    I reiterate – UID is revolutionary. It will make the whole process of “LEGAL” identity much simpler. It will cut down on the corruption and increase the security. It is the need of the hour.

  6. Vishnu Says:
    January 15th, 2010 at 10:21 AM

    Madam, you are making a pointless counter statement. The second paragraph of your previous comment is laughable (no offence). It is foolish to compare someone hacking into a national level UID scheme and someone hacking your Orkut account. I’m was not arguing that we need 100% literacy before we progress into the technological era, but I don’t think there need of further explanation for the possible misuse of UID by taking advantage of the ignorance of illiterate people.

    Secondly, about your argument on targeting benefits using the so called ‘leagal’ identity. The definition of ‘leagal’ identity may include ‘lifestyle, income and nutrition’ of an individual. But there is no provision to include such wellness indicators in the UID number (yes, the average income of a person will be there, but the drastic changes in his wellness indicators with his fluctuating income). The problem is you are looking at the issue only from the point of view of middle and high income groups, who have a steady income. Remember, a major portion of Indian population do not fall into this class.

    The major problems associated with having a classification of households as BPL or APL is that it is based on a survey conducted in one year. The result of this survey is used as standard for many years that follows. But the incomes of rural households, especially rural labour households, fluctuate considerably. A household may be non-poor in the year of survey, but may become poor the next year because of uncertainties in the labour market. How will an ID card solve this most important barrier to efficiency in the Public Distribution Scheme? I seriously doubt the possibility of achieving the high claims in ‘targeting benefits’ by UID scheme.

  7. Vishnu Says:
    January 15th, 2010 at 10:30 AM

    i regret the typing errors in the previous post

  8. Vishnu Says:
    January 15th, 2010 at 10:46 AM

    Coming back to our topic. We may have the best brains available working for this project, but all the tall claims of this project depends on the assumption that technology can tackle all the problems of social inefficiency and social problems .Don’t you think that it is a huge unjustified assumption?.

    Again no scheme on this scale has been undertaken anywhere in the world. Smaller and less ambitious systems have encountered substantial technological and operational problems that are likely to be amplified in a large-scale, national system. The proposed system unnecessarily introduces, at a national level, a new tier of technological and organizational infrastructure that will carry associated risks of failure. A fully integrated national system of this complexity and importance will be technologically precarious and could itself become a target for attacks by terrorists or others.

  9. Vishnu Says:
    January 15th, 2010 at 11:04 AM

    @ Aniket Singh
    I totally agree with you. UID may help to smooth the electoral process.
    But finger print authentication is not fool proof and the chances of impaired system performance of biometric readers limits its widespread use.

  10. Vishnu Says:
    January 15th, 2010 at 4:24 PM

    The revenue scheme that is going to generate money for this project looks inappropriate. One method of revenue generation is by charging the verification of identity by UID number. So many private institutions may decide to continue using existing alternatives (voter’s ID, driving license etc). Again even if verification is charged, that amount will not be even sufficient to meet the expenditure of maintaining a networked system necessary to do this. So the question of ‘high cost’ of this project that I’ve raised is VERY RELEVANT and your argument that Nandan Nilekani’s revenue generation scheme will fund the entire project is absolutely pointless.

    Again this biometric data need to be updated continuously. Children may have to update their biometric information every five years, while adults update their information every ten years. Imagine the feasibility of continuously updating the biometric data of 1.2billion people. This involves heavy expenses and this also contributes to the recurring costs that I’ve mentioned earlier.

  11. Medha! Says:
    January 15th, 2010 at 5:42 PM

    The entire brouhaha that we have been involved with for the past week is totally wasted, for you don’t even understand the concept of legal identity. You mainly seem to be harping about the people who belong to the BPL category. All that the UID does is that it classifies them as BPL, like most other forms of legal identity. The issue you are talking about is not the fault with the UID but with the Public Distribution Systems in itself. Secondly, we cannot stop by thinking just about the people who belong to the BPL category, for they form 25% of the Indian Population, (and these are the people who need a legal identity, more than anybody else). For the rest of the 75%, which is the absolute majority, the UID will not be superfluous or tiresome, but beneficiary and necessary.

    I would just like to point out to you that you cannot hide behind vague terms like “social inefficiency and social problems” when rebutting the point that the best brains in the world are working for the UID and they obviously know the security risks involved in maintaining the database and will resort to all of the methods available to secure it. What do you mean by “technology cannot tackle social problems”?? I’m sorry, was it supposed to? My point had no connection whatsoever to these “social problems” that you are talking about.

    Thirdly, now that you are done laughing at the contention, can i tell you that 44 million Americans are victims of identity thefts that happen on the internet, every year? I suggest you don’t think about yourself or people like you, that you are so fond of accusing me of, when you argue about issues that are much beyond your levels of comprehension. (no offence)

  12. Medha! Says:
    January 15th, 2010 at 10:54 PM

    The Unique Identification number is going to be, as my opponent agrees, a revolutionary step in the governance of the country. At a stage, where so much of development is to be achieved and many forces are impending a step to introduce a proof of legal identity that is authentic and is not prone to being copied easily is not merely a wishful exercise, but a necessity. The implications of introducing the UID are far-reaching. All the problems and glitches that seem to be involved with the introduction and implementation of the UID, are not significant when the end, the accomplishment is considered. Further, most of the problems that have been forwarded by my opponent are speculations, most of them revolve around a report conducted by the LSE condemning the introduction of a similar project in England, not India. In India, the introduction of the UID is undertaken by well-informed pioneers who belong to the field of technology. Further, it is presently in its first leg of implementation – the pilot project. This gives the people implementing it sufficient leverage – to test the technology and iron out the glitches. It even has a revenue system to make it run on its own feet.
    I would like to conclude by saying that when a new system is trying to be introduced, there are a lot of apprehensions. We cannot belittle an idea either because it did not work for another country, or because our country has other problem-areas, especially when the new system is going to help alleviate the situation.The UID right now is the need of the hour. Its purposes are two-fold – it helps people who are in dire need of help reap benefits and prevents the people who are misusing benefits from continuing it – all of these by establishing the legal identity of the individuals. Therefore, we must not only believe in its creation, but must support it wholeheartedly.

  13. Vishnu Says:
    January 15th, 2010 at 11:20 PM

    44 million Americans are victims of identity thefts that happen on the internet, every year?..wow. I was not aware of this. But if your statistics are true then it backs my concerns of the possiblity people trying to hacking into the UID system (especially when the potential benefits of doing so is much higher).

  14. Medha! Says:
    January 16th, 2010 at 10:37 AM

    Lets do a background check on the people heading UIDAI. Nandan Nilekani – former chairman, INFOSYS, one of the best IT companies in India that has received acclaim from people all over the world and also awarded prizes for their innovation in technology. Nandan Nilekani is also an IIT graduate who co-founded NASSCOM. The second, Bill Gates, who expressed his keenness to be a part of the project. Gates, presently the chairman and the Chief Software Architect of Microsoft, needs no introduction for he is considered to be an integral part of the personal computer revolution.
    When you have such luminaries, who have emerged into the public light from the field of technology, you can be rest assured that they will take all the necessary precautions to secure safety and ensure the implementation of the best technology.

  15. Vishnu Says:
    January 16th, 2010 at 12:55 PM

    Are you arguing that UK dropped this project because they didn’t have access to people of the status of Nandan Nilekani to head the project?.

    Quoting R. Ramakumar of Tata Institute of Social Scinences Mumbai “The fact that the UIA is to be headed by a technocrat like Nilekani, and not a demographer, is evidence to this biased view of the government. The problems of enumeration in a society like India’s, marked by illegal immigration as well as internal migration, especially of people from poor labour households, are too enormous to be handled effectively by a technocrat. It is intriguing that the duties of the Census Registrar and the UIA Chairperson have been demarcated, and that the UIA Chairperson has been placed as a Cabinet Minister above the Census Registrar.”

    Whoever may be the big brains working behind the project a slight failure in any of the technological components may immediately affect underlying confidence of people in the scheme as a whole.

    I’ll summarize the technological hurdles in the implementation of this project which may help you to get clearer picture of why it is not as simple as it looks.

    Volume: Creating and managing a database of 1.2 billion people spread over a huge area will involve immense work. Around five megabytes of data will be required to store the compressed fingerprint images of each individual, meaning the size of the entire database will be at least six petabytes (6,000 terabytes, or 6,000,000 gigabytes), making it among the world’s largest databases.

    Speed: Each new entry has to be validated against existing entries to remove the possibility of duplication. Over the next few years, this would mean comparing each new application against, say, one billion entries in the database at a reasonable speed. Also, the UIDAI proposes online authentication through cellphones and using basic technology. While authentication is a simpler process, the proposed time of three to four seconds for the same makes it challenging.

    Security: Dealing with sensitive information, it has to include security features that will ward off hackers. The robustness of the system under full operation, with possibly thousands of queries every second, will also have to be factored in.

    Biometrics: A Biometrics Committee has been set up to look into the issue of the final set of biometrics used. Due to the criticism that biometric readers are not fool proof, Nilekani is also planning to add iris scan data in addition to biometric readers. While this will increase the size of the database, there will also be problems relating to the equipment required for the iris scan (no need to mention the associated costs)

  16. Vishnu Says:
    January 16th, 2010 at 1:08 PM

    And about the 75% of the Indian population above poverty line (the absolute majority as you call it)…see Ms.Medha, just because a person come above BPL does not mean that he is well off. Only 20% of the Indian population comes under the classification of middle and high income group (world economic outlook database September 2006). So it is not fair to say that we cannot just stop by thinking JUST ABOUT BPL category. In fact their problems are the key issues which need to be addressed immediately.

  17. Medha! Says:
    January 16th, 2010 at 3:01 PM

    I am not contesting that there are not going to be any hurdles, technological or otherwise. What I am contesting, however, is that the risk is worth taking, for it is a well-informed risk, not only because we have the best brains working for us, but also because, as Nandan Nilekani remarked in the Devil’s Advocate, the technology needed exists, it just has to be scaled up. Of course, it is an ambitious, such a project has never been undertaken. But the issue at hand is its necessity. Both UK and USA, the “developed” countries that have dropped similar projects, have dropped issuing the card. They, however, have a number that they identify the residents with. The social security number of the USA and the national insurance number of the UK (both of which have become de facto National Identification Numbers) are similar to the UID number that the UIDAI proposes.
    As for the speed involved with the granting of the UID, are you opposing it because the verification might take lets say a day or two as opposed to the 15 days or more that the other proofs take? With this, when the authenticity of the UID is considered, I don’t see how you have a case.
    You seemed to have misunderstood my point about the BPL. While 25% of the people are BPL, 20% belong to the middle and high income groups, 55% remain poor. Out of these 700 million people in India do not even have a legal identity, which means, 700 million people are outside the system. What the UID proposes to do is give them an identity, so they are eligible to the benefits offered by the government.

  18. Vishnu Says:
    January 16th, 2010 at 9:36 PM

    Social Security Number in US and National Insurance Number in UK do not have biometric data stored in them. The concept of biometric check is the heart of UID. If biometric check is eliminated the system will become less complex and the cost of the project will be much lesser. But then its tall clams will no longer hold. Again remember that the population of India is nearly 20 times as that of UK and the social conditions we have in our country is much more diverse and complex.

    The existing technology for biometric checks even in small scale have encountered substantial technological and operational problems and this is definitely going get amplified when it is scaled up. In India we need to scale up this technology to handle 1.2 billion people.

  19. Suresh Jagennathan Says:
    January 18th, 2010 at 2:57 AM

    We need to do this project , if only to prove to ourselves, that we can do such a massive project.Why should we constantly compare ourselves to UK or USA that if they cannot do this , then we cannot do this. I dont want to be emotional but I believe India should now aspire to do what we think is in our interests , the bigger the better. If we fail once in a while , so be it!

  20. George Says:
    January 24th, 2010 at 8:42 PM

    What are we tryin to prove??India the next Tech Hub of the world??.The world knows it and people of US who work for IT companies know it extra well about their Indian colleagues.Lets assume that the project is successful,and the 700 million people have an identity,will they be able to get what they deserve just by showing this card.At the end of he day its the bureaucrats who have failed time and again to put more strict laws in place and have been barriers for Govt funds reaching the people.A lot has been debated about the technical aspects of the project,biometrics,Database and so on ,do we really know what the aam admi needs and will all the issues be addressed with this UID.

    On a lighter note ,the funds needed for the project are also being addressed as mentioned above by Medha.Instead of breaking our heads as to how to keep the cash flowing,let one form of it be the Tax amount or the black money collected from the political bigwigs.This will certainly solve 10% of cash of money issues.

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