Panel to assess costs of a unique identity…………..Priyadarshi Siddhanta
Every time the UPA governments ambitious Unique ID project tries to take a step forward, it seems to hit a bureaucratic wall. Days after the UID Authority chief Nandan Nilekani complained to the Union cabinet about inadequate staffing, the government has constituted a high-level committee of top bureaucrats to iron out issues about duplication in its methodology and huge costs.
A source said the cabinet committee on the UID headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh decided in its last meeting to constitute a high-level committee to avoid duplication.
The committee would comprise top officials from the Prime Ministers office (PMO), home ministry, planning commission and the UIDAI to look into the issues that have cropped up after the announcement of the National Population Register (NPR) and the inclusion of iris details in biometric data.
There are concerns that since the NPR is a standardised format, the UIDAIs desire to talk to multiple registrars may result in duplication on a massive scale.
The NPR would include every resident of the country and is a standardised format. So the need for iris details seems to arise only because the authority is talking to multiple registrars. This is contrary to the stand taken by the UIDAI in the EFC meeting earlier to consider the NPR proposal, the source said. He further informed that since the UIDAI would have a number of registrars and numerous enrollment points, such standardisation was not possible.
Another major dilemma that the committee is expected to address is in ensuring accuracy in de-duplication. On ensuring accuracy through iris impressions, the bio-metric committee did not give any categorical recommendation.
But the accuracy of de-duplication could be enhanced by cross-referring finger-prints and photographs with demographic data, the cabinet was told.
Even if iris leads to de-duplication with 99 per cent accuracy, given the fact that close to 60 crore people to be given the UID number, will this level of accuracy be acceptable especially in matters related to security? said the source.
Most importantly, the cabinet deliberated on the cost of the inclusion of iris data in the entire process and found that contrary to the perception that there would not be much of a cost implication for the government, the costs involved in the UID project had increased considerably.
Therefore, the planning commission has to keep in mind that over the next five years, the cost of the UIDAI to be borne by the public exchequer would be in the range of Rs 35,000-40,000 crore. Before deciding on enhancing the scope of the UIDAI and prescribing the most stringent standards, the governments ability to finance such an exercise also needs to be considered, an official in the plan ning commission said.