The fact that the government has introduced the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill in the Lok Sabha as a money bill says a lot of the seemingly unbridgeable distance between the ruling party and the main Opposition.
Fearing that the Congress would create hurdles in the Rajya Sabha, where the government is in minority, it was decided to treat it as a money bill and thus obviate the need for the approval of the House of the States. This could have been avoided had the Congress conducted itself in a responsible manner.
Given that, like the GST, the Aadhaar scheme was fathered by the UPA, it was incumbent on the Congress to support the Bill. But visceral hostility towards the present dispensation dictated that the Congress pull out all the stops and oppose whatever the government proposed to do.
Even though giving the scheme was necessitated by the Supreme Court which had stayed the optimum possible use of the Unique Identity Number card until a constitutional bench disposed of the matter, the government could not take chances in the Rajya Sabha.
The original objective of the scheme was to give every bona fide citizen a unique identity number so that there could be targeted delivery of subsidies and services under various schemes of the State and Central Governments. Given the huge leakages through collusive and corrupt bureaucracies and through an army of middlemen and touts, such a card became absolutely necessary.
Since the advent of the Modi Government, huge savings by way of targeted delivery of a number of subsidies, chiefly in the LPG subsidy, have been made. Nearly Rs. 30,000 crore in LPG subsidy has been paid under Direct Benefit Transfer scheme since November 2014. However, the intervention of the apex court was sought by civil rights activists on the ground that the Aadhaar scheme threatened the citizen’s right to privacy, especially when there was always the fear of theft and misuse of electronic data.
The court had stayed the compulsory insistence on the UID number for availing various services and subsidies offered by governments and for opening bank accounts. Nearly 95 percent of the adult population had received the UID cards, bearing a card-holder’s photo, number, fingerprint, iris print, address, etc. It is the closest thing that comes to the social security number in the U.S.
However, it cannot help in weeding out illegal Bangladeshis and Pakistanis because the Aadhaar-makers had no mandate to check the antecedents of anyone before issuing the cards. Even the Aadhaar Bill does not seek to distinguish between illegal and bonafide card-holders. Once the Bill gets the legal underpinning it is hoped that the apex court would expedite hearing on the privacy aspects of the scheme.
Admittedly, there could be some genuine privacy concerns, but not to the extent that it could materially affect the privacy of citizens. After all, the basic information in the Aadhaar data bank is about the address, name, date of birth, etc. The Bill seeks to address these concerns by statutorily committing to protect the security and confidentiality of each cardholder’s identity. Identity theft is sought to be made a criminal act, as it is in the western countries.
We have had no experience of numbering all bona fide citizens and giving them unique identity cards. The Aadhaar is a first of its kind project which got underway after several false starts, and after an abortive bid by the then Home Minister P. Chidamabram to stall it essentially out of personal pique.
If it makes headway, it will be a great step forward in many ways. Aside from everything else, the huge savings in targeted delivery of governmental subsidies and services itself will be a huge plus for the always stressed public finances. The apex court must weigh the potential gains to the nation while considering the objections of the civil society activists based on exaggerated fears about breach of citizens’ privacy.
Meanwhile, governments must stand warned that Aadhaar alone cannot prevent fraud and misdirection if, say, someone who is well above the poverty line claims to be below it and thus helps himself to subsidised LPG and rations. Yet, the statutory backing for the Aadhaar card would eliminate such abuses to a large extent. That is why it should be most welcome.
