Well, if media reports have to be believed, P Chidambaram, the Union home minister is all set to return as the finance minister. It does not sound too surprising, considering PC has been one of the best finance ministers that India has had in the recent past. What is more, his track record in the home ministry has been anything but spectacular. Not only has he failed to achieve much, his tenure has seen continuous friction of his ministry with the states. In short, his transfer from the finance ministry to home ministry has neither been good for the economy of the country nor for its politics. So his return should be good news for most.
Except those strongly backing UID/Aadhaar.
His dislike of the project—or rather the way it is being rolled out—is well-known. Not only has he disagreed with UIDAI’s way of collecting data, he has written to the prime minister multiple times complaining about it. It is in his insistence that the cabinet discussed in January the possible security loopholes in the way UID was collecting data and decided that while NPR and UIDAI would use the biometric data collected by each other, in case of discrepancies between UIDAI and NPR data, NPR would prevail.
Again, as recently as last month, he had written to the PM that UIDAI was not cooperating with Registrar General of India (RGI), which was working on the NPR. This is what Mint had reported, quoting from the letter.
“The decision of the cabinet is crystal clear and I am unable to comprehend the reluctance of UIDAI to allow the NPR camps and to accept the NPR data. I had taken these issues with Nandan Nilekani, chairman, UIDAI, dated 14.05.12. The home secretary (R.K. Singh) has also discussed the issue at length with the UIDAI director general and mission director. However, despite our best efforts, issues remain unresolved,” he said.
It is difficult to believe that once he takes charge of finance ministry, his opinion about the Aadhar project would change drastically.
The question is: will it impact the effectiveness of UIDAI?
While it is true that UIDAI is part of the Planning Commission, the reason it became the government’s flagship program so soon is because of strong support from the former finance minister Pranab Mukherjee. Not only did Mukherjee generously provided for the funding of the project in three of his budgets, he made it the basis (aadhaar) of most of the government programs. There were nine reference to Aadhaar in Mukherjee’s budget speech this year. Whether it is for subsidy being credited directly to beneficiary’s bank account, creating a more efficient public distribution regime by creating a PDS network, or for disbursement of government payouts—such as MG-NREGA payments, pensions and scholarships—the finance minister seemed confident that Aadhaar could be leveraged as a platform to deliver. National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) even created the Aadhaar Payment Bridge Systems.
In short, while the UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilkeani created a new generation platform in form of Aadhaar, it is Mukherjee who was instrumental in making it the flagship platform of all developmental activities in India. So much was Mukherjee’s liking for Nilekani that he made him head some half a dozen task forces, groups, and committees entrusting him with most changes. I wrote about it in a post in this blog earlier called The Importance of Being Shri Nandan Nilekani. Mukherjee had even gone to the extent of openly backing Nilekani on PDS reforms when the food ministry was ignoring the recommendations of a committee headed by him.
From there, it would be quite a change for Aadhaar/Nilekani if Mukherjee is succeeded by someone who very recently complained so strongly about the project to the prime minister, taking the name of its chairman.
Things would probably have been a little different had the UIDAI been a independent statutory body. A proposal to make it one was rejected by a Parliamentary Standing Committee headed by Yashwant Sinha a few months back. Interestingly, in its report, the Committee had extensively quoted news reports about the home ministry’s objection to/criticism of Aadhaar to justify its decision.
Both Chidambaram and Nilekani have proven track records. The country will benefit if they work in tandem. Another conflict in the government is the last thing that we want in the time of this apparent policy paralysis. Not only will it make another fresh and fairly successful experimentation in the government go astray, any drastic change in the path will make very wrong signals to international community. After 2G decision and GAAR, the last thing the country would like to see is going back on UID plans.
