Two 'Times of India' Pieces on UID: Bad News & Context

A couple of articles in the Times of India today reflect poorly on India's UID project. Links follow and we provide a bit of context.

Over 11.5 lakh applicants waiting for unique identification cards (Times of India)

"Till February 15, almost 30 lakh applicants in Bihar registered for the UID cards. About 18.5 lakh of them have so far been delivered their cards," Anil Kumar, marketing director, postal department, told TOI. "We were supposed to deliver the cards within 95 days from the date of enrolment. But matching process takes time leading to delay in delivery of cards," he added.

The slow speed led to the government halting the process till the postal department delivered the cards to all the applicants.

Approximately 62% of Bihar enrollees have received their UID cards (lakh = 100,000).
Total 2011 Bihar population = 103,804,637.

See also: UID May Ditch India Post, one of our most-viewed posts this year.

UIDAI: Finance Ministry gives cold shoulder to Aadhaar project (Times of India)

The national project to give unique identity numbers to all Indians, and enable welfare payments electronically, is now facing a snub from the very part of the government that funds it, and has been its most staunch supporter so far: The finance ministry.

Two moves initiated by the banking division in the finance ministry over the past three months appear to duplicate and bypass the work being done by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) in enabling payments using its Aadhaar number and biometrics.

Read the whole thing. Evidently many Indian banks, government departments, etc) are chomping at the bit so hard for better ID management solutions that they are contemplating going their own way and developing their own systems instead of waiting for the UIDAI.

Doing this would be easier for some organizations than others based upon size (smaller = easier), potential ROI, and managerial acumen.

It's possible that some leading lights of India's large organizations have been thoroughly persuaded of the wisdom of large-scale biometric deployments (the idea of UID) but have become skeptical that the largest scale deployment imaginable (the UID project, itself) is likely to succeed, or that UIDAI can pull it off. Of course, there are other possibilities, as well. We'll see.