Let us help Nandan Nilekani: What is your take on national ID card?

These cards come along with a lot of benefits. They will serve as a means to access a variety of government-related activities. For instance, the UID numbers and the database will be linked to agencies such as the Election Commission of India and the Income Tax Department, which deal with the general public and issue special number cards such as voters photo identity cards in the case of ECI and PAN Cards in the case of IT Departments. In addition, it will be used for providing services under government schemes such as the public distribution system, and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme for families living below the poverty line. It will also be used for delivering financial and other assistance to the needy. Also, the UID programme will provide an identity card to every citizen to establish citizenship and address security concerns.It is a great effort by the Congress Govt to tap the mass professional knowledge available in this country. The politicians are normally bound by petty political and caste factors and Dr Manmohanji is making some real changes in the way the Govt. works. Brilliant stuff!!

But at the same time the Govt should ensure that such professionals dont get sunk in the midst of Bureaucrats. It is bound to happen

Nandan Nilekani, co-Chairman, Infosys Technologies Ltd, the country's second largest software company, was today appointed the Chairperson (with Cabinet Minister rank and status) of the National Unique Identification Authority.The first corporate CEO to get a Cabinet minister's rank and status in the UPA, Nilekani has quit the Infosys board of directors to chair the National UID Authority.

Wipro, a leading software company, is officially consulting the government on the ID project. It is helping the government in programming the software and creating the national database. The government-owned National Informatics Centre can handle the software post coding and also handle the database.

The project will eventually eliminate the need for multiple identification mechanisms and will remove hassles relating to proof of identify when it comes to say, opening a bank account, getting a telephone connection, paying taxes, casting vote and claiming benefits from government schemes. If Nilekani does deliver a world-class system that will capture biometric data of a citizen besides his/ her photograph and personal details, various central ministries can decide whether they can use this platform to meet their requirements

I am a bit pessimistic about it.  Although I liked the idea very much. 

My pessimism stems from the fact that I still do not have any voter ID card, which was also an ambitious project by the then Election Commissioner Mr T N Sheshan.  I submitted my application with photograph on 3 different occassions for it but I still have not received the voter ID card.

This time I hope they do it nicely and systemmatically and positively so that all the citizens receive it.

Of course, duplication or forgery can never be ruled out.  But this document will be a powerful tool in the hands of the citizens of India.

With one card a person may be able to obtain bank accounts, passport, invest in shares and mutual funds,etc.

I wish Mr Nandan Nilekani & Co all the success.

Imagine you opening a new savings account in a bank with just one paper to show. Or imagine you getting loan in secs with just one paper to submit. Or better, imagine your dear ones know about your whereabouts in no time. OR the best - The elections will be fair and without disparity. People will not be able to fake someone else and vote on their behalf.

All this and many many more benefits are going to come along with UIN. Finally the government has thought something about the regular tax payers like us. The UIN will give freedom to a person to move across the country without having a fear of getting arrested on charges of Terrorism (This has happened to few in past. where they had to produce a lot of certificates and guarantees to prove their innocence.).

Now the icing, whom does the government appoint for realizing this revolutionary task - Mr. Nandan Nilenkani. The man who pioneered and revolutionized software industry in India. I am very much hopeful and excited about the idea coming to reality. This project will bound to be a success with one of leading entrepreneurs on the job.

Good work Government.!!!

Kudos to the UPA govt for coming up with an idea of this sort. the GCC countries could used as a case study especially Kuwait. UAE implemented the national ID card scheme recently this year. This card makes bank transaction, legal transactions, country exits and entry point checks easy. Everything in a single database. If you look at Kuwait, the banking system is linked to the airports in such a way that if the traveller has pending loan payments,telephone or electricity charges, the traveller is  asked to pay up at the airport. This is a rule and hence most of the country occupants see to that all the payments are updated and done prior to travelling. Using the UID one can check up bank accounts, traffice fines, traveller fines, government utility payments etc online in one click. The same could be done with the UID project in India.

Each idea stands in its own way, but my thought says, it controls the corruption, illegal works, violence and many more. I hope the UID Database will be maintained in such a similar way that can be easily accessible and user friendly and The UID database must & should be accessible at lest from the passport office, all Govt offices, airports, railway stations, police stations and at many more places where they required. The UID keeps the entire history of the person which shows the status and if any criminal records and even going to be done it can be trapped through his ID. In the similar way it will be helpful in every where like election commission of India to count the legal voters.

In this way it will be helpful to control the corruption and violence, but I really afraid that the UID database in not going to be corrupt before and after its implementation.

We can recommend a plan of action in Toostep Meet for this.  We could consider corporate proposals, outsourcing, individuals participation, technology assistance and simply self employment proposals to facilitate this in the toostep meet.  What is your take on this?

UID is great decision and will save cost for individuals and lot of saving to government. It will give excellent flexibility for people moving and easy approach to catch offenders. Getting Loan sanctioned, getting change of address, Getting passport, ration card, PAN, driving licence, getting voter card all these will become easy and less time consuming.

I had suggested about a National Identity system integrated with Crisis/Disaster Management system,   10 years back to the Government. I wrote about it in 2004 and sent again to the web site of Congress party in March 09.  In fact this is one of the items in my article "A Bitter Pill for India Reprieve" posted in five parts in tooStep.  Though only few members in tooStep noticed it, I am happy that most of the proposals in it are under active consideration by the Government.

The system envisaged is not just some intelligent chip card system. This is going to be a highly complex project costing multi-billion dollars.  It has to a system that is fully integrated with the National Crisis /Disaster management and Terror control system. The system shall be capable of locating, accessing, collecting and modifying data in the chip from anywhere by the central control system. The chips and he system shall have safeguards against non-use, misuse, various type of tampering and  discontinuity while in shadow areas. The system shall be capable of enabling Personal identification of every inhabitant and visitors in the country.

With so much IT capability and techno-savvy environment in India, it shall be possible to develop and implement a system  which can generate and provide identity cards with an intelligent chip with DNA map and finger print code embedded in it. Once activated it will remain logged in to a national network linked with GPS/GPRS/WiFi.  ISRO is capable of setting up the geo stationery satellites required for GPS network across the country. 

1. To start with the chip shall be in the form of a permanenet body wear like a tamper proof waist band. The chip will remain logged in with the GPS/GPRS/Wifi network. It shall be capable of working with the power generated from the body heat. There shall be a complex unique sensor so that if is taken out from the original owner, it will crash and generate warning by the central system.
2. With further development later, the chip can be physically implanted in the body which shall work with the power generated from body heat.
3. The chip shall be capble of interacting locally with other O.S interfaces over bluetooth /blackbury or an exclusive application system.
4. The persons with this unique ID chip can just walk in anywhere and get served without the need of any other document or gadgets for his all his needs. It can replace the door and car keys, the toll and parking fee tickets, admissions to Cinema halls and protected areas,  the ATM cards, Passport and visa.

Of course, this proposal has wide ramifications as it intrudes privacy of individuals, and will be difficult to get social acceptance across the society in one go. The advantage of such a system is enormous, and therefore, it will get accepted in course of time.

Safeguards against tampering is envisaged by various inbuilt features. Tamper or removal of the capsule will permanently damage it. Any prolonged discontinuity will be detected and reported by the system. 

With this the identity of any person could be verified directly by a blue tooth device and cross checking it with the central system database. Utility of this system is enormous. This can best method to detect possible terrorist activities and help eradicate terrorism from internal and external sources. 

A ready method to have the record and day to day update of national Census, collection and use of various information, which could be used for ensuring payment of taxes, full scale voting etc. taking opinion polls on national rulings and bills etc. etc.

Every visitor entering the country shall be given a temporary ID card at the point of entry.  This can in the form of a tamper proof wrist band sealed over the wrist and to be removed at the time of exit. Removal or tampering of this will generate and send information to the internal security. 

It would certainly make huge difference in indian economy and people of india by security & knowledge wise.This step will not only help the IT companies as well as Data bank,Chip developers,Lot of Consultant,Big Employment generator.A big intellectual guys from corporate will make lots of difference in Cabinet where he & other cabinets miniters will share very important decisions.

Great step by Dr.Manmohan Singh.Highly appreciate.

I respect your positive view points on National Id card but I request you all to think as whole country not an individual. Have you ever asked a person who don't have a home to live, a cloth to wear,one time meal to eat. How this card is going to help them.

India stil has the world's largest number of poor people in a single country. Of its nearly 1 billion inhabitants, an estimated 350-400 million are below  the poverty line, 75 per cent of them in the rural areas. More than 40 per cent of the population is illiterate, with women, tribal and scheduled castes particularly affected.

Do you think a person lacking his basic needs really care for this card. We all should make India educated, equal and developed, only then this national ID card will make sense. This will be merely wastage of money and time.

I support the idea as an individual, but India is not ready for this step at the moment.

We have to appreciate the step of goverment to appoint a resourceful person like Nandan Nilekani.But after all we can't ignore our corrupt system for not to issue fake UIDs to citizens of other countries.What is the guarranty of clean process to issue these identity cards to people.Here we can't expect a night makeover and feel like a safe country.Presently thousands of Bangladesi and Pakistani citizens are stayed in India.....how can it be possible to seperate them from Indian citizens at the time of issueing these UIDs even if our police is not succeded in identifying terrorist after every attack in India. I don't want to say that this is not a good step by Government because there is no dought in the fact that this card can be all-in-one step by step but only seeing the good side is not appropriate for country....now watchable thing is that .....how this step would we success.

To ensure that the smart cards have value, issue biometric cards (with fingerprints). This will help in establishing identity, prevent forgery, ensure better crime control, and will be very authentic. The biometric cards will be slightly costly, but the value addition will be worth it. While collecting the data of card holder, the citizen's educational attainments, health status etc could also be collected. Some more details available on www.pharmaceuticalshealthcare.blogspot.com

In order to understand the demographics of the population we need to add race and earnings data to the Citizen ID data. We need to add races like African, Chinese, European/white etc to truely show the spread of population. Though this may seem radical this is the only way to administer the growing population to see which race is overpopulating the country.