When noted economist Jean Dreze visited Surguja in Chhattisgarh a decade ago, its utterly non-functional Public Distribution System (PDS) looked like especially “designed to fail.” The National Advisory Committee member has written in a recent article that the ration shop owners illegally sold the grain meant for the poor and “hunger haunted the land.” But that was then. The economist was pleasantly shocked to see the transformation this time. “Ten years...

Packed into what look like two medium-sized suitcases are eight essentials — an iris scanner, a fingerprint machine, a camera, a laptop, a computer screen linked to the laptop, an Internet data card, a pen drive and a printer. Armed with kits like these, Nandan Nilekani and his team at the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will kickstart one of the most ambitious exercises in recent times — distribution of...

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...

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...