Five key lessons Malaysia can learn from India's Aadhaar experience

Experts say that private players involved in building the ecosystem should be made to abide by the 'skin in the game' principle

Last week, a delegation of ministers and officials from the Malaysian government visited India to learn more about Aadhaar, to take forward the country's plan to put in place a similar identity-based architecture for implementing welfare schemes efficiently.

While it is commendable that a Southeast Asian tiger cub economy is keen on replicating an Indian system, it is worthwhile to note the differences between the two economies. For example, India’s per capita income of $1,964 (per capita GDP at constant 2010 US $) is almost one-sixth of Malaysia’s $11,521.

In this context, there are five critical takeaways from the Indian