UID will prove most beneficial to the poor

New Delhi, Jul 15: Amid high hopes and expectations Nandan Nilekani will be taking over as the head of Government's Unique ID project on Wednesday, Jul 15. The techie who was chosen by the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh to head the ambitious initiative.

The UID project is aimed at first developing a database consisting of all the identity information and then provide a way to verify the same. The Unique Identity Authority (UIA) which has not yet put forth any solid plans to achieve the goals has however managed to brew a lot of Hopes.

If the project is successful, then the ones who will benefit the most from this provision would be the poor, as the population which falls under the categories of middle class and above have heaps of documents, like passports, drivers licences, to prove for their identity.

Additionally, it will ease the real life day to day issues the poor face, like the requirement of an ID card for procuring food and other supplies from the government. Also due to the increased threat perception across the country, the poor are the ones who are questioned on identity as they make their livelihood doing jobs that usually lead to them being perceived as a threat.

Nandan Nilekani who understands the burden of the project was quoted in a news report as saying, "It keeps me awake at night, thinking what the hell have I got into."

The former 'Infoscian', no doubt, understands the complexity of the task that lies ahead- to provide a card that proves identity of every one of the 1.2 billion strong population across a huge mass of land along with taking measures to avoid duplication of the cards.

And before the project starts off, there will be other things to take care of such as the budget, hiring personnel and setting targets. The very thought of all this added on with the expectations could turn a man pale.

However, the man who carries this big responsibility on his shoulders says, " If a few hundred million poor people get better public services, it's worth its weight in gold."

OneIndia News