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I am sure this column will run afoul of all those who are lustily cheering the appointment of Mr Nandan Nilekani as the chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UDAI), with (as stressed by every published report ) the rank and status of a Cabinet Minister.

I voice my scepticism drawing on my 35 years of experience as a bureaucrat at various levels of the State and Central Governments, as also the UN, and many more years of close observation of similar such euphorically received inductions in the 1950s in the heydays of Jawaharlal Nehru at the Centre and Dr B. C. Ray in West Bengal. Almost all of them ended in an anti-climax, to put it mildly.

That in itself would not have mattered, if it did not leave in tatters the reputation of the persons who were welcomed with fanfare. What Mr Nilekani has taken on is a gamble with odds weighing against him, especially considering that for close to three decades he had attuned himself to one type of organisational behaviour, systems and procedures and work culture. If Mr Nilekani still succeeds, it will certainly bring glory to him and the country.

Let me quickly checklist the odds. The UDAI has been variously described as forming a part of, being attached to, or functioning under the aegis of, the Planning Commission. Now, Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia as the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission also holds the rank of a Cabinet Minister and has, on all accounts, a major say in decision-making.

Patently unrealistic

When two functionaries, of whom the senior one has been at the heart of the political and government establishments for long many years and the other is a new arrival, dependent on the Planning Commission hierarchy for support facilities, establishing mutually reinforcing equations is in itself a complicated process demanding much energy and effort.

Therefore, unless it is made clear in writing that the Chairman of the UDAI will have direct access to Prime Minister without any need to go through the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission and with independent authority to run the project and access funds, a serious turf problem will emerge almost from the word go.

The total cost of the project has been estimated at Rs 150,000 crore and is slated to be completed in three years. Both expectations are patently unrealistic. The initial allocation for it in the interim Budget is itself a measly figure of Rs 100 crore. Are we to believe that, with all the ambitious schemes already on its plate, the Government is going to find Rs 50,000 crore in each of the coming three years beginning from 2009-10?

Looking at the sheer physical enormity of the work involved - building a complete computerised record of all citizens above the age of 18, identifying the targeted groups for various flagship programmes to ensure that development deliverables reach the intended beneficiaries "efficiently, effectively and economically" as envisaged by the Government, getting data from different Ministries and agencies - it is doubtful if even Mr Nilekani, with his undoubted dynamism will be equal to completing the issue of the cards to all the 102 crores of population by 2012. Frustration and blame games are built into the situation.

Added to all this is the possibility of a conflict of interest, in case Infosys itself competes for any of the components of the project, as some reports have already suggested.

The UDAI is certainly vitally important for the country, but the nature of the job is essentially mechanistic, with no scope for the kind of innovation and creativity that went into the Infosys. It requires a temperament different from that of Mr Nilekani.

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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