The cracked Aadhaar

 My neighbors are in a tizzy, with rumors swirling about that their gas connections are imminently threatened by their lack of an "Aadhaar" card. The Aadhaar card is India's first serious attempt at a universal identity card and, as is almost always the case in India, suffers from a host of avoidable flaws despite being spearheaded by the former head of India's IT giant Infosys, Nandan Nilekani.

 Granted, any serious thought I have given this issue is only a few days old, but that has been sufficient to revive in me the same frustrations as when I try to wade through any documentation process in Inda. "Aadhaar" is a Hindi/Sanskrit work which means foundation or basis, and is symbolic enough as a name in symbol-conscious India. I understand the thinking behind this, which potentially could eliminate the repetitive process of proving identity in order to obtain a host of services and/or documents from various public and private agencies, from your driver's license to an internet connection to, yes, your gas service.

 Here's my "first information report", as gleaned from my neighbors: You need this Aadhaar card, and that right speedily, because your gas connection will be at risk in three months(and cooking gas in India is as precious a commodity as salt in the Sahara). In order to get this card, you have to get an application form and a "token" from a "camp" that is set up for a few days in various parts of the city/state. So people line up for hours from the early morning to get this form and "token". I'm not sure what the "token" is for, since at that point no information will have been noted down. Once you get the form and token, you fill out the form and, along with supporting documentation, file it at the next "camp", at which you will be photographed, fingerprinted and iris-scanned. Then, after 20-30 days(according to the Government of Karnataka) or 30-90 days(according to the official UID Authority) or 1-2 years(according to frustrated applicants), you should receive your empowering UID card.

 Not ever having been fond of standing in line for anything after my teen experience of huddling on a Madras sidewalk overnight in the fond hope of scoring a ticket to Jodie Foster's "Taxi Driver" at the Madras Film Festival, I decided to try doing it online. Which should not be a bad idea, since the whole thing is not only data-driven, but headed by an IT whiz, and it should be a "whizbang" experience. The first thing I discovered was that the forms were anything but standard. The forms being handed out at the "camps" are different from the forms the Central government is making available, and those are different from the State government's, and the state's is different from those available at various websites claiming to be informative about the whole process.

 Multiple issues confound this process. First, there is the discrepancy in forms. Forms should be in one language only, the language preferred by the applicant. They should be standardized with relation to their content and fields. They should also be issued only by designated government offices or available from designated official websites, not from a multiplicity of private websites using the issue to drive traffic to their advertisers. One would think that Nandan Nilekani, the man in charge of the effort, would make uniformity his number one priority. Secondly, there is the issue of supporting documentation. Acronyms are used in the instructions with little explanation:EID, PoI. PoA, PoR. The acceptable documentation for Proof of Identity contains little, if anything, that a migrant cook from Bihar, for example, can provide in Bangalore. This scheme is supposed to benefit ordinary(poor) people more than the affluent who usually have sufficient documentation, and the means to obtain it if they don't. Furthermore, the instructions fail to match the form. For example, the instruction for Field 4 is for the address, whereas on the form, the address is Field 6. Such laxity seems to be symptomatic of the entire process.

 Here's how I think the process should have been simplified and streamlined.
Firstly, the central government should have implemented a mandatory process of recording births, marriages and deaths, for the tens of millions born, marrying and dying each year, to provide a reliable, secure database at least for the future.
Secondly, all forms and procedures for the UID scheme should have been standardized, only varying in langauge, and eliminating any bilingual forms. People should be able to pick up or download the forms in their language of choice.
Third, permanent field offices should have been set up(doing away with these ridiculous "camps") which alone would have the authority to accept and process applications. It doesn't make sense if any public or private entity should make it mandatory in order to obtain their goods or services- and obtaining it is supposedly "voluntary"- but you have to run around in circles and wait for "camps" to dispense your paperwork and process your application.
Fourth, passport holders(who have already been subjected to the same verification procedures) should be fast-tracked for the UID card, possibly even with same-day service. I'm sure most of them wouldn't even object to a modest fee for the speed and ease of service.
Fifth- and this assumes that Mr. Nilekani has made the most of his IT background- use existing fingerprint and iris-scan databases to weed out duplicate/fraudulent applications, and make those a criminal offense. That would also have the effect of discouraging attempts at fraudulent duplication or identity theft, if it can be detected and stopped at the biometrics phase.
Sixth, eliminate all documentation requirements which would facilitate bribing a gazetted officer or any other official to provide a "certificate" not backed by any other documentation. They are not in a better position to determine what your name is, when you were born or whether you are lying. Furthermore, they don't particularly have a reputation for honesty, and they already have plenty of avenues to make that illegal buck on the side.
Finally, place ALL relevant information, links and forms on one single website, and eliminate the confusion and the diffusion from the profusion of official and pseudo websites. Now you'd be ready to provide quick, efficient service and be a credit to the nation.

 For now, though, the aadhaar(foundation) seems to be cracked.

Update: while the Supreme Court and the Government of India have both stated that the Aadhaar card will not be mandatory, the GoI has, through its monopoly of gas services, mandated the use of the Aadhaar card to get the same subsidy on household cooking gas that consumers were previously getting. If you don't have one, you will have to pay "full price", which was recently and conveniently raised by 50% just ahead of this mandate. Full price is almost three times, the subsidized price, as opposed to twice the price just six months ago. This is a typical example of Indian bureaucracy, speaking out of both sides of its incompetent mouth: claiming that the Aadhaar card is not mandatory, and then making it mandatory to obtain services and subsidies.

Update 2: My housekeeper went recently to "seed" her bank account with her gas account, and presented her Aadhaar card as proof of identity. She was told to return with an additional proof of identity document. Wtf?