Uniquely identified silence

Unique Identification (UID) appears to have become a taboo phrase in the corridors of power. At the government’s fifth anniversary function for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke eloquently about having a biometric database for NREGA workers to stop leaks and fraud. But not once did he mention the obvious — the link between Nandan Nilekani’s massive UID project and this database. Neither did Congress President Sonia Gandhi nor Rural Development Minister Vilas Rao Deshmukh when they spoke. This collective silence could be the result of strong opposition to it from civil society which maintains that UID amounts to an infringement of individual freedom. Despite the official silence, the actions of the rural development ministry speak volumes. It has sought an expression of interest for service providers for both UID and biometric enrollment of workers across the country.