One card

    Talking of Government policies in these fractured times can invite trouble in Babudom. In the last few years things have changed…. For better in some respects; for worse in some other. For one, individuals have been weaponised with broadcast/publishing powers with the spread of camera phones and internet. It takes just a millisecond to view natural disasters, fires, tragedies, movie stars in airports etc in the public domain.

    The Home Minister has floated the idea of a single multi-purpose card for all Indians. All identity documents rolled into one; Aadhaar, driving licence, PAN, voter ID, ration card etc. The 2021 census is expected to be conducted paperless. Let us examine the proposal, shorn of its’ political overtones.

   The Govt is already pushing a scheme for a ration card which can be used to draw rations from anywhere in the country. Many State Govts are already on board in this exercise while some states have not joined the scheme. This is certainly a laudable initiative since truly deserving migrant labour in various states will be able to draw rations in their place of work, without changing their domicile status.

   Do we need a single card? Will it serve any purpose? Will it make life easier for individuals to go about their daily lives? Well, it depends on how it is conceived and handled. The Aadhaar was conceived as a welfare initiative, to ensure that identibeneficiaries are de-duplicated and to prevent pilferage of govt resources to ghost beneficiaries. A process which has resulted in lining the pockets of bureaucrats and middlemen all these years. The govt has discovered many more uses for Aadhaar by linking it to PAN no:s, for allotment of LPG fuel and in some states for issue of rations. The one measure which has been lacking in the rollout of Aadhaar was the absence of standalone machines in public offices which would enable identification of individuals

   Now let us come to the core  issue. Would you like to carry one card in your wallet which would not only identify you but also give the entire gamut of services needed for various things like travel, ration etc ?  Might sound like a good idea but then in these times of data privacy issues and identity thefts, it could pose several other problems. India doesn’t have a data privacy law. It is still a work in progress. The single card, while making things easier for the ordinary citizen, could also raise concerns regarding futuristic threats which are still in the realm of the unknown.

   But let us not dismiss the idea straightaway. This blogger believes that there is some merit in seamless integration of data contained in various documents. While keeping the documents per se separate, it is yet a great idea to link all the documents to Aadhaar number and enable citizens to change their address on a single window system which would then automatically update the information in the backend database of all other documents like driving licence, PAN, ration card, passport etc. This would automatically obviate the need to carry out address change for migrant labour (Central Govt employees like me are also no different from migrant labour in that we end up living in many places in India; although with a lot of help from the Govt.)

    There was a time not long ago when share certificates were in physical form and any change in address had to be intimated separately to the registrar of each company. Some companies would fail to update details, resulting in loss of dividend, intimations etc. With the advent of dematerialization and trading portals, it has become a distant memory. We have to incorporate change in address or Bank account number only once and it is updated everywhere else. One more revolution of a similar kind is required for seamless updating of data of various documents which are issued to citizens by diverse authorities. These documents are issued by many central and state govt departments and would require coordination of the highest order. It remains to be seen how feasible it is to bring them all under one common platform to trigger this change which is sure to benefit the common citizen