India’s Aadhaar scheme brings benefits

 July 30, 2013 

India has launched an identity management scheme called Aadhaar, to issue biometric identity cards to all 1.2 billion citizens. This was announced in January 2009.
In June 2009, Nandan Nilekani, a businessman and entrepreneur, co-founder of the famed, computer services and software giant, Infosys, was given Cabinet status and appointed to run the scheme. Nilekani, a thoughtful man and author of the bestselling book ‘Imagining India,’ in which he makes out a case for such a biometric identity card for all Indians, must now deliver, with a budget of Rs. 1 billion.

Nilekani, using his software jargon, sees his Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI) ‘as a vast server, loaded with biometric and other details of every Indian, which will be accessed using the new identity card. Biometrics of this scale have not been tried before, the data will be stored on line and accessible for instant on line verification of the identity of every Indian’.
Benefits of the Aadhaar scheme

The benefits of the Aadhaar scheme in providing services to the poor and marginalised have been clearly shown in two studies recently concluded in the East Godavari District of Andhra Pradesh and the Aurangabad District of Maharashtra.
By December 2012 the officials in East Godavari had enrolled over 95.5% of the population into the Aadhaar Scheme. They now use Aadhaar cards to deliver rations under the Indian Government’s Public Distribution Scheme (PDS) through the Fair Price Shops (FPS) of the Government to families living below the poverty line (BPL).
The Indian Government spends around Indian Rs. 750 billion to provide food security to people living below the poverty line. Yet as per the International Food Policy Research Institute report, 27% of India’s population remains undernourished. This is notwithstanding the fact that in India, food production has increased by 60% over the last few years.                                                  Read more....