The requirement of documentary evidence regularly obstructs disbursement of scholarship funds. It also often results in humiliation and frustration for pupils and parents from socio-economically weaker sections. Last month, a tahsildar in Dhar district in Madhya Pradesh asked parents to submit their photographs clicked with dead animals as 'proof' of their occupation. This is another prematric scholarship meant for children of parents engaged in 'asurakshit'/'unclean' occupations. Given the frequency of such unethical delays and denials, why has the government linked scholarships with a document, which does not yet have legal backing? And yet, this is far from an unwise or hasty move. It is smart and calculated. Going ahead with linking Aadhaar cards with disbursing funds for multiple welfare schemes is a way of pressurising courts into approving the concept of the Aadhar card and the UIDAI (and thus the thousands of crores awarded in contracts to various companies). This is obvious in the way the central government has argued to the court that a stay order would not only disrupt and bring to a halt the distribution of subsidies for LPG, but also lead to great loss of money.

There are very serious grounds for opposing systematic biometric profiling of citizens. The most obvious being our infamous inefficiency and corruption; the less obvious and more serious being the opacity of the entire project. Information on who will store the information, who will have access to it, all the purposes that it will be used for, details of contracts awarded – has not yet been made available in the public domain.

Aadhaar is actually being linked to provisioning for all the rights that are most fundamental to human dignity and survival, and must not be made continget upon governmental whims and fancies in a democracy. Or on WB/IMF diktats, for that matter. These are also areas where government has steadfastly refused to invest adequate funds and strengthen and streamline delivery systems by removing ambiguities and scope for corruption, and owning responsibility for provision and delivery. Instead the government insists on creating an incredibly vast and complicated web of cash transfers, targeted schemes and new, untested, and humungously expensive identity-documentation. To top it all, it then calls the whole mess, 'aapka aadhaar'.

So we have cash transfers instead of a universal PDS. We have UPA clamouring for voucher systems, and selective, non-egalitarian concepts of model schools and scholarship schemes instead of committing funds and political will to transform the entire huge existing system of public-funded schools. Yet, the same state has shown uncharacteristic alacrity to spend thousands of crores, ignore serious criticism, and undertake a project of dubious constitutional and legal validity to hurriedly create a new system of profiling and documentation. For example, why could the government not simply remove tuition and other kinds of fees, and provide uniforms and stationery through schools? In the long run, it is a far simpler, more straightforward, reliable and affordable way of ensuring that no student is denied access to schooling, or has to face the consequent stress and humiliation.

Finally and most importantly, we cannot forget that the UID project is incredibly undeniably big business for Big Business, and not just in India. Contracts have been awarded and information collected while the government has not yet provided credible, coherent and complete information on all the purposes for which this personal biometric and other data would be used, and under what conditions it would be shared with other agencies or what inter/national agencies these would be. After all, it is our privacy, our rights, and public funds which are at stake here. So, why should we not remind the policy makers that what is urgently needed is direct and adequate investment in provisioning for basic rights of people, to create a far more solid and substantial 'aadhaar' for the country and all its people. (IPA Service)