To establish my nationality as an India, I do have multiple ID cardsissued by various government agencies like the election identity card, drivinglicense, passport, PAN and what not. But the UPA-II government feels thesecards are not enough and I, like all other citizens of the country, mustpossess one more card, that's the Unique Identification(UID) card.

The government seeks to achieve three-fold objectives by issuing the UIDcards: 1. Enhance national security; 2. Check illegal immigration, particularlyfrom Bangladesh; 3.Ensure that the benefits of government welfare schemes reachthe targeted sections. Regarding the first objective, government thinks thatUID will ensure identification of terrorists and thus curb the menace. But iscross-border terrorism growing just because we don't have a UID?

There are gross discrepancies in the issue of various identity cards in forcenow. It is no secret that a major portion of the BPL(Below the Poverty Line)cards issued to avail of subsidised food commodities through the PDS is bogus.A report states that there are 97 million BPL cards in the country whereas thenumber of BPL families come to only 58 million. Nandan Nilekani, who has beenappointed chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI),himself mentions in his celebrated book `Imagining India' that the number ofBPL cards in his home state of Karnataka exceeds the total population of thestate. This is because the cards are issued indiscriminately, thus denying thebenefits of PDS to the really deserving. The story is the same as regards anestimated 65 million kisan credit cards in circulation in the country.

How does the government propose to prevent similar fraud in the issue ofnational ID card? Where is the guarantee that the same corrupt forces whichtook advantage of the BPL cards won't abuse the UID also? Is the governmentwilling to give a public commitment that the issue of UID will be transparentand corruption-free?

The entire ID card project is estimated to cost around Rs 1.5 lakh crore. Nodoubt, it will offer a multi-billion dollar business opportunity for thedomestic technology players, with the first phase of the project — which willcover ultra urban, urban, and semi-urban populations — alone offering a Rs6,500 crore business opportunity. But the business part apart, is such amammoth spending justified? If this ambitious programme falters at theimplementation level like other such ID cards did, what will be the drain onthe public exchequer? Rather than embarking on a new identification card atsuch colossal cost, shouldn't the government have made an honest attempt toplug the loopholes in the present system of issuing ID cards? Did thegovernment set the right priority in taking up the UID project? Only time willtell.