The Unique Identification Authority of India (uidAI)’s ambitious plan of issuing a unique biometric-enabled number, innocuously called ‘aadhaar’, to every Indian resident has finally begun to generate a debate on citizen-State relations, privacy, financial implications, and operational practicalities. What the debate has largely missed so far, however, is the credibility of the uidAI’s claims in the field of social policy, particularly the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and Public Distribution...

The Supreme Court’s observations on the public distribution system (PDS) which call for exclusion of people living above poverty line (APL); fixing monthly ration on per head rather than per household basis; and using unique identification (uid) cards for targeting PDS supplies have implications that go beyond the PDS. The court has virtually set new parameters even for the proposed food security law since that is also likely to be...

HCL Infosystems' led consortium with Accor Services and Virgo Softech has bagged a contract from Madhya Pradesh government for implementing food coupon-based targeted public distribution systems (PDS) in the state. According to a company release, the project would involve setting up a model of food and civil supplies distribution in the state based on the Unique Identification Authority of India (uidAI) guidelines. The order is for over 10 million expected...

Nandan Nilekani-headed Unique Identification Authority of India’s (uidAI) plan to pay rural job scheme wages by putting to use the unique ID number will have its pilot run in five blocks of Jharkhand within a week. At a meeting today chaired by chief secretary A.K. Singh and attended by uidAI director-general Ram Sevak Sharma, around a dozen blocks were discussed. It was then decided to choose five of these blocks in...

Government on Thursday sanctioned funds for the second phase of the ambitious scheme to allocate unique identity numbers to 10 crore of the country's population. The Cabinet Committee on Unique Identification Authority of India, at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, approved the commencement of Phase II of the scheme at an estimated cost of Rs 3023.01 crore. "Of this, an amount of Rs. 477.11 crore would be towards recurring...