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...

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...

The two-day Centre-state meet on revamping the public distribution system (PDS), with an eye to the likely enactment of the National Food Security Law, has harped on the same measures that have been talked about for long. These include the computerisation of PDS operations, timely delivery of stocks to PDS outlets, and proper identification of the beneficiaries, especially those entitled to the below-poverty-line (BPL) cards, based on the latest poverty...