277 - Eminent Indians against unique identity number - The New Nation

From Gopal Krishna
October 15th 2010

Some eminent personalities in India have opposed a project to give each citizen a unique identify number. In a statement they have said, the project that proposes to give every resident a 'unique identity number' is a matter of great concern for those working on issues of food security, NREGA, migration, technology, decentralisation, constitutionalism, civil liberties and human rights. The process of setting up the Authority has resulted in very little, if any, discussion about this project and its effects and fallout. The documents on the UIDAI website, and a recent draft law (the National Identification Authority Bill, which is also on the website) do not provide answers to the many questions that are being raised in the public domain. This project is intended to collect demographic data about all residents in the country. It is said that it will impact on the PDS and NREGA programmes, and plug leakages and save the government large sums of money. It would, however, seem that even basic procedures have not been followed before launching on such a massive project.

Before it goes any further, we consider it imperative that the following be done:

Do a feasibility study:
There are claims made in relation to the project, about what it can do for PDS and NREGA, for instance, which does not reflect any understanding of the situation of the situation on the ground. The project documents do not say what other effects the project may have, including its potential to be intrusive and violative of privacy, who may handle the data (there will be multiple persons involved in entering, maintaining and using the data), who may be able to have access to the data and similar other questions.

Do a cost:benefit analysis:
 It is reported that the UIDAI estimates the project will costs Rs 45,000 crores to the exchequer in the next 4 years. This does not seem to include the costs that will be incurred by Registrars, Enrollers, internal systems costs that the PDs system will have to budget if it is to be able to use the UID, the estimated cost to the end user and to the number holder. In a system such as this, a mere statement that the UIDAI will deal with the security of the data is obviously insufficient. How does the UIDAI propose to deal with data theft? If this security cannot be reasonably guaranteed, the wisdom of holding such data in a central registry may need to be reviewed.

The involvement of firms such as Ernst & Young and Accenture raise further questions about who will have access to the data, and what that means to the people of India.

Constitutionality of this project, including in the matter of privacy, the relationship between the state and the people, security and other fundamental rights.

Questions have been raised which have not been addressed so far, including those about -

Undemocratic process: UIDAI was set-up via a GoI notification as an attached office of the Planning Commission without any discussion or debate in the Parliament or civil society. In the year and a half of its inception, the Authority has signed MoUs with virtually all states and UTs, LIC, Petroleum Ministry and many banks. In July, the Authority circulated the draft NIA Bill (to achieve statutory status); the window for public feedback was two weeks. Despite widespread feedback and calls for making all feedback public, the Authority has not made feedback available. Further in direct contravention to the process of public feedback, the NIA Bill was listed for introduction in the Lok Sabha 2010 monsoon session

Privacy (It is only now that the DoPT is said to be working on a draft of a privacy law, but nothing is out for discussion even yet)

Surveillance: where this technology, and the existence of the UID number, and its working, could result in increasing the potential for surveillance

Profiling

Tracking

Convergence, by which those with access to state power, as well as companies, could collate information about each individual with the help of the UID number.

National IDs have been abandoned in the US, Australia and the newly-elected British government. The reasons have predominantly been: costs and privacy. If it is too expensive for the US with a population of 308 million, and the UK with 61 million people, and Australia with 21 million people, it is being asked why India thinks it can prioritise its spending in this direction. In the UK, the Home Secretary explained that they were abandoning the project because it would otherwise be 'intrusive bullying' by the state, and that the government intended to be the 'servant' of the people, and not their 'master'. Is there a lesson in it for us? In the late nineties, the Supreme Court of Philippines struck down the President's Executive Order A.O 308 which instituted a biometric based national ID system calling it unconstitutional on two grounds - the overreach of the executive over the legislative powers of the congress and invasion of privacy. The same is applicable in India - UIDAI has been constituted on the basis of a GoI notification and there is a fundamental risk to civil liberties with the convergence of UID, NATGRID etc.

The UIDAI is still at the stage of conducting pilot studies. The biometric pilot study has reportedly already thrown up problems especially among the poor whose fingerprints are not stable, and whose iris scans suffer from malnourishment related cataract and among whom the incidence of corneal scars is often found. The project is clearly still in its inception. The project should be halted before it goes any further and the prelude to the project be attended to, the public informed and consulted, and the wisdom of the project determined. The Draft Bill too needs to be publicly debated. This is a project that could change the status of the people in this country, with effects on our security and constitutional rights, and a consideration of all aspects of the project should be undertaken with this in mind.

We, therefore, ask that:
o The project be halted,
o A feasibility study be done covering all aspects of this issue, o Experts be tasked with studying its constitutionality,
o The law on privacy be urgently worked on (this will affect matters way beyond the UID project),
o A cost benefit analysis be done,
o A public, informed debate be conducted before any such major change be brought in.

(Signatories to the statement on the UID included: Justice VR Krishna Iyer, retired judge, supreme court of India,
Prof Romila Thapar, historian,
K.G.Kannabiran, senior civil liberties Lawyer
Kavita Srivastava, PUCL and Right to Food Campaign Aruna Roy, MKKS, Rajasthan
Nikhil Dey, MKKS, Rajasthan
S.R.Sankaran, Retired Secretary, Government of India
and Deep Joshi, Independent Consultant.)

271 - NREGA 'breaking the feudally enforced silence' - One World South Asia

09 July 2009

The flagship programme of the Congress-led alliance in India for rural employment helped the incumbent government come to power for another term, say social activists Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey. With an increase of 144% budgetary allocation for the NREGS, the government has shown a strong commitment for inclusive growth.

Suddenly the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has become a buzzword. It stands vindicated by the mandate of the people in its most basic evaluation in a democracy – the general elections. Basking in the glory and security of post-electoral analysis, it is actually the best time for those who support the basic philosophy of the NREGA to focus on what it has done and what it has not, by its own parameters.

An opportunity for rural renewal, an NREGA project
site in Rajasthan/ Photo credit: The Hindu
An opportunity for rural renewal, an NREGA project site in Rajasthan/ Photo credit: The Hindu
The first and the primary focus should be to examine its impact on the human resource base of rural India. Has it energised, mobilised, empowered, and delivered to India’s poorest and most marginalised rural people?

Secondly, has it provided those who were “not shining” a measure of dignity, tangible economic benefit, and a motivation to participate in local action? This is the crux, for, something as vast and ambitious as the NREGA can only succeed in bringing about change if millions of workers become its true advocates and monitors.

Let us begin with the most persistent charges of endemic corruption. Notwithstanding negative propaganda and the prominent reportage of corruption, NREGA stands apart from employment and poverty alleviation programmes in significant ways.

It is the first national programme of consequence which has woven transparency and accountability into the mundane fabric of daily interaction of people with government.

"It is the first national programme of consequence which has woven transparency and accountability into the mundane fabric of daily interaction of people with government"
The cases of reported corruption have shocked the intelligentsia. The rural worker might often be the victim but will still offer critical support, not only because it has provided wage income, but also for facilitating disclosure, which helps identify and fight pilferage. In fact, in many cases, scams have been exposed by the workers themselves.

NREGA gives an opportunity to break the feudally enforced silence of its victims. Through transparency and social audit measures, it allows anyone, anywhere to be part of the monitoring of the delivery system. The other programmes appear to be clean only because no one knows what goes on!

The NREGA gives a further opportunity to realise the Constitutional sovereignty, the power of the people. What the political establishment would do well to understand is that the vote was not a blind endorsement, but the expression of a fragile hope of a rational participatory relationship with the government.

New claims

The NREGA has opened up a unique legal space for the poor, with a consequent, legally-mandated obligation on the administration to deliver. In fact, implementation rests on the simple philosophy that ordinary people will go to great lengths to procure their entitlements, given the space to do so.

Apart from systemic corruption, we are all aware of the chronic inefficiency, unwillingness and incapacities of the bureaucratic system to deliver entitlements for the poor. The persistent argument was that in this context implementation would be impossible.

The NREGA sought to create real opportunities and legal spaces, with the belief that people will begin to push to overcome bureaucratic and political resistance. The electoral endorsement over, it is a good time to begin to examine this aspect of bottom-up implementation. Does the rights-based approach really work?

The Act has a number of “trigger mechanisms” designed to activate and establish people’s entitlements. One such trigger is the right to have a Job Card. The Act mandates that anyone who applies at their Panchayat for a Job Card must be given one within 15 days.

"The Act has a number of “trigger mechanisms” designed to activate and establish people’s entitlements. One such trigger is the right to have a Job Card"
Without a Job Card, people cannot even apply for work, nor corroborate the records. It is a “license” and “pan card” of the wage worker’s family, with a record of days of work and wages received during the year. There are many States where large numbers of people have demanded, but not received, Job Cards.

In many Panchayats, the Job Cards are in the control of implementing agencies. Publicising the Job Card as a record of individual entitlements, to be updated by the authorities, and kept in possession of the workers, would ensure the NREGA is monitored by its workers.

Crucial accountability

The application for work and the dated receipt are crucial to trigger the demand for work. The receipt is also the basic record for claiming unemployment allowance if the work is not provided within 15 days.

States like Rajasthan have fared well in providing Job Cards, and providing work within 15 days, but resistance to giving dated receipts has become a massive problem. No State has effectively activated this important mechanism. Nevertheless, it has worked when workers groups have got organised.

In the 30 years of existence of its precursor, the Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Act, there is no recorded instance of payment of unemployment allowance. The NREGA has already recorded payment of unemployment allowance to large numbers of workers in chronically poorly-administered areas.

The successful people’s struggles for the payment of unemployment allowance – in Barwani District of Madhya Pradesh, Raichur of Karnataka, Bolangir, Navrangpur and Kalahandi of Orissa, Latehar in Jharkhand, Sitapur District of UP – has been a breakthrough in accountability, and an inspiration to other workers struggling for entitlements.

The payment of unemployment allowance emanates from an administrative lapse, and is eventually deducted from the pocket of erring officials. It is not a freebie doled out of the government exchequer. Like the Right to Information Act, this has created an important mechanism for enforcing the right while holding the bureaucracy accountable.

The wage under NREGA has been another trigger and indicator of its success. The wage rate, the measurement system, and the timely payment of wages have all become part of the entitlement package. Thanks to NREGA, minimum wages have, for the first time, become a real factor in determining the lower limit for market wages. There are many ongoing struggles for the payment of minimum wages; and adopting a transparent measurement system for every work-site is a management challenge that has thrown up many grassroots solutions.

Bottlenecks

Wage payments through NREGA have initiated the biggest “financial inclusion” drive, with the requirement that all wage payments be made through banks and post offices. The engineers, the accountants, and the post offices have been unable to cope, and late payments have begun to cripple the Act.

Students and Academics, working together with workers’ organisations in Khunti District in Jharkhand, have operationalised the entitlement in the NREGA to get Rs 2,000/- per worker paid to over 300 workers as compensation for delayed payment under the provisions of the Payment of Wages Act.

The Khunti payment, made last month, has once again demonstrated that the solution to the vexatious issue of late payments lies in the entitlement framework.

The uneven implementation in different States has shown that where people’s struggles have gained political and administrative respect, the NREGA has shown tangible results on a massive scale. It is that battleground of struggle that could well determine the future of the political discourse in this country.

"The uneven implementation in different States has shown that where people’s struggles have gained political and administrative respect, the NREGA has shown tangible results on a massive scale"
The Government of India has transferred adequate money to the States and Districts to make timely wage payments. C.P. Joshi, the current Union Minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, was reported to have talked about his party prospects in the polls being negatively affected because of late wage payments in Rajasthan.

As Union Minister now, if he were to exercise his administrative and political will to ensure compensation is paid to those receiving delayed wage payments, the lethargic bureaucratic system will find a way to respond. Chronic delays in wage payments during the drought in Rajasthan became a political issue, and the delays were wiped out. Innovations and mechanisms respond to a bottom-up demand, but do so best when the political establishment puts pressure.

The NREGA also assures an adequate, realistic provision for administrative expenses. At the current six per cent of total costs which has been allowed for administrative costs, there is no legitimacy in citing a shortage of staff or resources for bureaucratic delay.

In Rajasthan, for instance, the over 7,000 crores spent on NREGA last year amounts to a massive Rs 450 crores available for administrative expenses per year. This kind of money and resources can, in fact, help gram Panchayats become properly resourced to better carry out their overall responsibilities. It can also help ensure that there is no excuse for the failure to carry out all transparency measures and put an effective grievance redressal mechanism in place.

Biggest contribution

Transparency and accountability to the poorest and the weakest is in fact the biggest potential contribution of the NREGA to the entire governance system. The NREGA is an outstanding example of how the RTI Act can be woven into the fabric of the delivery system and the whole legal and governance paradigm. The entire expenditure on works and workers – 94% of the total amount – is required to be put on the website of the NREGA, with every transaction revealed in detail.

This can easily be increased to 100 per cent. Using this Management Information System (MIS), Vijaypura Gram Panchayat in Rajsamand District has begun to build a Janata Information System (JIS) painted on the walls of government buildings in the Gram Panchayat.

The boards reveal the details of the number of days of work provided and payments made in the year to every Job Card holder in the Panchayat. Also painted on the walls are the list of works sanctioned, the expenditure on labour and material, and item-wise expenditure on material in each work in the Panchayat, including exactly how many bags of cement, sand and trolleys of stone were procured, and at what rate in the Gram Panchayat. This is like a web wall which reveals to every interested visitor all that they want to examine.

What can be done in one Panchayat can be carried out in the 9,189 Panchayats of Rajasthan, and the hundreds of thousands of Panchayats in India. The walls in Vijaypura Panchayat provide details of 976 families given employment in 2008-09, where two thirds have completed 100 days, with an expenditure of 91 lakhs.

The Sarpanch is a Dalit youth from a poor family, elected in a general seat, and the Panchayat is proof of how well an Employment Guarantee programme can be implemented, in terms of people’s entitlements, transparency measures, worksite management, and many other innovations.

Larger impact

If the millions of financial transactions of the NREGA can go on their web site, there can be no justification for not following the example and putting almost every financial transaction of government – receipt or expenditure – on the web sites of the relevant department or agency. Proactive disclosure is a requirement of the RTI Act, and is a good example of the larger potential impact of the NREGA on governance.

The NREGA is India’s first law to codify development rights in a legal framework, and like the RTI, it has begun to set an example in a global context.

"The NREGA is India’s first law to codify development rights in a legal framework, and like the RTI, it has begun to set an example in a global context"
Apart from the law, and a set of guidelines, there is a strong and immediate need to formulate rules to operationalise provisions in the Act; which includes guaranteeing grievance redressal in seven days, social audit twice a year, and mandatory transparency and proactive disclosure.

Properly incorporated and enforced, a comprehensive set of operational rules could strengthen the entitlement framework, fixing responsibility at every level.

Once again, it would enable bottom-up pressure for implementation, which should be matched by a strong political mandate. Today, the NREGA has millions of workers’ unresolved and un-addressed grievances and problems to be dealt with.

A response system could not only radically improve the NREGA, but can impact and transform the whole face of rural governance.

Is the NREGA an administrator’s nightmare or a redistribution of income and power? A social safety net or a step towards the right to work, to prevent migration, and even boost local market economies? For those who cannot think beyond the pale of the free market economy and the business model manager, it is indeed a nightmare.

For years, simplistic management solutions to poverty, with the poor as an input to be managed, have failed. We cannot see ordinary people as active participants and empowered citizens.

That is why there is difficulty in understanding the practice and logic of democracy and difficult, therefore, to understand the realistic detailing and complexity of an Employment Guarantee initiative.

Inclusive growth

Independent India has to acknowledge the critical role the NREGA has played in providing a measure of inclusive growth. It has given people a right to work, to re-establish the dignity of labour, to ensure people’s economic and democratic rights and entitlements, to create labour intensive infrastructure and assets, and to build the human resource base of our country.

For the first time, the power elite recognises the people’s right to fight endemic hunger and poverty with dignity, accepting that their labour will be the foundation for infrastructure and economic growth.

"For the first time, the power elite recognises the people’s right to fight endemic hunger and poverty with dignity, accepting that their labour will be the foundation for infrastructure and economic growth"
The entitlements paradigm is still to be established in many States in the country.

Second generation issues like the expansion of the categories of permissible works needs to be taken up with labour and the deprived continuing to be the central focus.

The improvements must be to strengthen, not divert from these basic tenets. In the midst of the current economic slowdown, there is enough evidence that this kind of commitment can work to help reduce the slowdown.

The political class would do well to understand that the most important solution is an assertion of its will to respond to people’s voices. The many wise, creative, and innovative initiatives emerging from theory and practice have a future only if they are owned by the people and implemented with justice.

The NREGA can give people an opportunity to make the entire system truly transparent and accountable. Properly supported, people’s struggles for basic entitlements can, in turn, become the strongest political initiative to strengthen our democratic fabric.

Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey are activists with the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS). Email: arunaroy@gmail.com, nikhildey@gmail.com.

Source : The Hindu

225 - The UID Project - Press Club Meeting in Delhi, 28th Sept 2010 at 12.00pm

Press invite

The UID Project
Venue: Press Club
Date: 28 September, 2010 Time: 12 noon

You are sincerely invited to the press conference on the UID Project, which will be addressed by Justice A.P.Shah, Upendra Baxi, Nikhil Dey, Uma Chakravarthi, Shohini Ghosh, Prof. Jagdeep S. Chhokar, Amar Kanwar, Reetika Khera, Praful Bidwai and Bezwada Wilson to discuss a project that has the potential to transform the state-citizen relationship and will affect every resident.

The UID project, to give every resident a Unique Identity Number, has been initiated without any prelude: there is no project document; there is no feasibility study; there has been no cost: benefit analysis; there are serious concerns about data and identity theft. The UID project has proceeded so far without any legal authorization, on the basis of an executive order, that could change the status of the people in this country, with effects on our security and constitutional rights, and a consideration of all aspects of the project should be undertaken with this in mind.

Concerned citizens have raised questions about the
 ·         Undemocratic process
 ·         Privacy (It is only now that the DoPT is said to be working on a draft of a privacy law, but nothing is out for discussion even yet)
 ·         Surveillance: where this technology, and the existence of the UID number, and its working, could result in increasing the potential for surveillance
 ·         Profiling
 ·         Tracking
 ·         Convergence, including by companies, which may be expected to collate information about each individual with the help of the UID number.

National IDs have been abandoned in the US, Australia and the newly-elected British government. The reasons have predominantly been:  costs and privacy. In the UK, the Home Secretary explained that they were abandoning the project because it would otherwise be `intrusive bullying’ by the state, and that the government intended to be the `servant’ of the people, and not their `master’. In the late nineties, the Supreme Court of Philippines struck down a biometric based national ID system as unconstitutional on two grounds – the overreach of the executive over the legislative powers of the congress and invasion of privacy. The same is applicable in India – UIDAI has been constituted on the basis of a GoI notification and there is a fundamental risk to civil liberties with the convergence of UID, NATGRID and the National Population Register.

Seventeen eminent signatories,  Justice VR Krishna Iyer, Retired Judge, Supreme Court of India, Prof Romila Thapar, Historian, K.G.Kannabiran, Senior Civil Liberties Lawyer, Kavita Srivastava, PUCL and Right to Food Campaign, Aruna Roy, MKKS, Rajasthan, Nikhil Dey, MKKS, Rajasthan, S.R.Sankaran, Retired Secretary, Government of India, Deep Joshi, Independent Consultant, Upendra Baxi, Jurist and ex-Vice Chancellor of Universities of Surat and Delhi, Uma Chakravarthi, Historian, Shohini Ghosh, Teacher and Film Maker, Amar Kanwar, Film Maker, Bezwada Wilson, Safai Karamchari Andolan, Trilochan Sastry, IIMB, and Association for Democratic Reforms, Prof. Jagdeep S. Chhokar , ex- IIMA, and Association for Democratic Reforms, Shabnam Hashmi, ANHAD, Justice A.P.Shah, Retired Chief Justice of High Court of Delhi, ask that:

·         The project be halted
 ·         A feasibility study be done covering all aspects of this issue
 ·         Experts be tasked with studying its constitutionality
 ·         The law on privacy be urgently worked on (this will affect matters way beyond the UID project)
 ·         A cost : benefit analysis be done
 ·         A public, informed debate be conducted before any such major change be brought in.

Warm Regards,

Usha Ramanathan
Anil Chaudhary
Shree Prakash

On behalf of "Campaign for No UID"
A 124/6 First Floor, Katwaria Sarai, New Delhi-110016
------------------------------------------------------------
If you have any queries, please mail at samvadik@gmail.com   or call Shree Prakash @ 09406614800