When Rajiv Gandhi ascended to the chair of Prime Minister of India by sudden turn of events, he too relied on his advisors and bureaucracy. He had his friend Sam Pitroda who promised to bring in development through his various technology missions. He could usher in development in Telecom sector through his innovative Centre for development of Telematics his other missions including oil mission( meant to solve shortage of edible oil) were unmitigated disasters because his plans were much away from practical viewpoint and he also earned the wrath of too many politicians. Mr.KP Unnikrishnan when he became union Minister for communication ran a witchhunt with Pitroda running for cover. That was really unfortunate because Unnikrishnan made very serious allegations of financial impropriety which never stuck sam Pitroda for they were all motivated. The Same Sam Pitroda now heads National Knowledge Commission which has done precious little so far with a full team of members of eminence occupying and wasting public money over their deliberations. Sam invited the wrath of his own fellow members including Dr.Bargava who quit the panel in a huff when much was made about reservations in institutes of higher learning like IIM and IIT. What Kapil sibal has been able to deliver in a span of less than 100 days, NKC failed to address the basic issues of crisis facing Education.

another man who commands tremendous influence in policy making is PM's buddy Dr.Montek Singh Ahuluwalia. Many including me felt that he is solely responsible for the disconnect between the UPA Government and people with his neo rich policies like divestment of PSU holdings etc. One of his pet projects is providing Unique Identification No to every Indian citizen. This has now been handed over to another great champion of free enterprise Nandan Nilekani. Now the project is expected to cost thousands of crores of Rupees and it is expected that the provision of UID will solve all matters related to national security. I see not much of a merit in such an argument and I believe that only software firms will end up making money at the cost of exchequer. Exisiting Identificationcards like Voter Identity Card, PAN Cards, Driving Licences , Passports and many other identity cards could have been expanded to include every citizen. We can now start issuing ID cards through registry of births and deaths at municipal and panchayat levels. Computerisation of such birth records will definitely provide an opportunity to provide unique ID to would be citizens. for those who already exist we can provide this identity cards through various bodies such as Insurance Companies who provide medical insurance. Networking of such bodies providing Identity cards will enable to consolidate all those card holders list.

In India, government employees have their own identification cards. We may make compulsory for all private establishments to issue such identity cards and may require them to network with statutory bodies such as Inspector of Factories, Labor department etc. We could insist on Photo ID cards in all such instances. For unorganised labor we could insist their respective trade unions to issue such ID cards. through such collective efort, the expenses could be minimised.