It is sometimes interesting to observe the dynamics between politics, technology, social aspirations of the “talented elite” and national economics. All these have come into play over the last four years, falling conveniently in place, may be unintended, to lay out an ambitious attempt by the Indian National Congress to stake claim on the Indian throne for the third time in a row in 2014
It all started around 2009 when some of the most talented and self-made corporate honchos forayed into the corridors of the New Delhi babudom with a social vision to provide a Unique Identity card (UID card) to every single Indian. An ambitious task – given the size of our population, our broken processes and our near-empty coffers. With an estimated project cost ranging from Rs. 18,000 crore to Rs. 150,000 crore, debates rage on the need for such an initiative in the present moment of our country’s growth trajectory. I have always believed that this initiative is necessary and it is better to go ahead with it. The private citizens who started it out thankfully did not blew it up. They covered a lot of ground in spite of bureaucratic hurdles, thanks to their experience in building technology companies against formidable rivals, and we can see the cards now in various parts of the country. And I thought that in next few years we should be seeing a slow and steady rollout of the cards and its intended benefits. However, things have taken a different turn that we will discuss here.
Elsewhere in the world, in countries as varied as Brazil or Philippines, we can observe that the direct cash transfers (DCTs) are playing a better role in alleviating poverty when compared to targeted subsidies. Providing a DCT to the right individual has always been one of the potential benefits of the UID project. It is a doable task, even though it amounts to opening up tens of millions of bank accounts for the beneficiaries in villages and settlements where there are no banks. It is a task requiring a diligent approach spanning more than a few years.
Now we enter politics! Coming to the streets of the country, political parties are vying with each other to provide freebies to people who are so used to them that they are demanding more and more. Lok Satta Party has been opposing the penchant for governments to rely on freebies to win over the people. However, in this melee, UPA Government has been searching for a silver bullet to go to the polls in 2014. They seem to have placed their belief in the direct cash transfer scheme albeit with a twisted approach. Instead of replacing subsidies with direct cash transfers, the Central Government is going ahead with additional freebies – an additional welfare scheme! Moreover, the UPA is pressing for large-scale implementation of DCTs through UIDs covering a wide swath of India by 2014 General elections, ignoring all the problems that would crop up while actually putting in place the logistics of delivering such a big number of DCTs at break-neck speed.
UPA might be going to the polls in 2014 with the slogan “Aap ka paisa aapke haath” – your money will be in your hands. This concerns all of us taxpayers for two reasons. Firstly, more of the taxpayers’ money will be going for more welfare purposes in this precarious fiscal situation, with the Government shy to replace the existing subsidies with DCTs but adding DCTs to existing subsidies. Secondly, a whole lot of taxpayers’ money is wasted while opting to build quickly the infrastructure to actually implement DCTs.
So rests the story of a noble initiative hijacked in an unwholesome manner by the Government to serve its political interests while nullifying to a good extent the very objective of the initiative. That said, we should be careful not to attack the idea of UIDs and DCTs.
It all started around 2009 when some of the most talented and self-made corporate honchos forayed into the corridors of the New Delhi babudom with a social vision to provide a Unique Identity card (UID card) to every single Indian. An ambitious task – given the size of our population, our broken processes and our near-empty coffers. With an estimated project cost ranging from Rs. 18,000 crore to Rs. 150,000 crore, debates rage on the need for such an initiative in the present moment of our country’s growth trajectory. I have always believed that this initiative is necessary and it is better to go ahead with it. The private citizens who started it out thankfully did not blew it up. They covered a lot of ground in spite of bureaucratic hurdles, thanks to their experience in building technology companies against formidable rivals, and we can see the cards now in various parts of the country. And I thought that in next few years we should be seeing a slow and steady rollout of the cards and its intended benefits. However, things have taken a different turn that we will discuss here.
Elsewhere in the world, in countries as varied as Brazil or Philippines, we can observe that the direct cash transfers (DCTs) are playing a better role in alleviating poverty when compared to targeted subsidies. Providing a DCT to the right individual has always been one of the potential benefits of the UID project. It is a doable task, even though it amounts to opening up tens of millions of bank accounts for the beneficiaries in villages and settlements where there are no banks. It is a task requiring a diligent approach spanning more than a few years.
Now we enter politics! Coming to the streets of the country, political parties are vying with each other to provide freebies to people who are so used to them that they are demanding more and more. Lok Satta Party has been opposing the penchant for governments to rely on freebies to win over the people. However, in this melee, UPA Government has been searching for a silver bullet to go to the polls in 2014. They seem to have placed their belief in the direct cash transfer scheme albeit with a twisted approach. Instead of replacing subsidies with direct cash transfers, the Central Government is going ahead with additional freebies – an additional welfare scheme! Moreover, the UPA is pressing for large-scale implementation of DCTs through UIDs covering a wide swath of India by 2014 General elections, ignoring all the problems that would crop up while actually putting in place the logistics of delivering such a big number of DCTs at break-neck speed.
UPA might be going to the polls in 2014 with the slogan “Aap ka paisa aapke haath” – your money will be in your hands. This concerns all of us taxpayers for two reasons. Firstly, more of the taxpayers’ money will be going for more welfare purposes in this precarious fiscal situation, with the Government shy to replace the existing subsidies with DCTs but adding DCTs to existing subsidies. Secondly, a whole lot of taxpayers’ money is wasted while opting to build quickly the infrastructure to actually implement DCTs.
So rests the story of a noble initiative hijacked in an unwholesome manner by the Government to serve its political interests while nullifying to a good extent the very objective of the initiative. That said, we should be careful not to attack the idea of UIDs and DCTs.
