Why it is not NPR vs UID

First. During the past week, we have had a lot of questions and a lot more messages of support at the thinkuid.org web site. My big Thank You to all those interested enough to participate, support or argue with us. It shows that you care.

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[edit 4-Feb: Making some corrections, thanks to suraiya95's point that NPR is not a statistical exercise. So I will cross out the deletions & put additions in purple. I will distinguish between Census (the statistical exercise) and NPR (the new project by the Census dept). 
Net effect of these corrections: Either because I am pig-headed or perhaps my reasoning stands yet, the essence of my post remains. I leave it for you, the reader, to decide.]

Now for the tough part. Tough because NPR the Census is an otherwise good example of a huge project, well-executed. It is also tough because of my own first-hand experiences that color my views despite well-meaning admonition by a Director-Census once: "Don't let your personal experiences be the sole basis to pre-judge our work, Sastry".

I'll try to keep those in mind. This is going to be long, so grab that coffee, switch off that phone and make yourself comfortable. :)

NPR The Census is a great project, no doubt.
Those who criticize the NPR project Census Dept casually, can only do so when they don't understand the goals, the vast scope and the extraordinary amount of effort that goes into such a gigantic exercise. No doubt, it is a great project - created to count the population of India and various demographic profiles of the population, to better understand our nation as a whole. There in lies the problem.

It has been, and still is well-suited to be only a statistical exercise. The processes and the error-tolerances are perhaps within acceptable bounds, statistically speaking. But they are not good enough when it comes to matters that need every individual to be more than a statistic. Not acceptable when one or two, but a staggeringly large number of people are casually tossed aside as a mere statistical anomalies. Oh please don't quote percentages. Please be one-of-those anomalies and tell me.

Pardon me for being a skeptic. Perhaps I don't exist.

Since 1986 I've been trying to get on to the census and the electoral rolls. Without using bribes and calling favors of people I know, I have tried every possible avenue that I came across including online campaigns such as Jago Re. Stood in queues, wrote letters, stood against walls for photographs - all in vain. The only thing I did not do is to become a fanatic, chasing them day and night. Incidentally, the same government lets me be an income-tax payer (pan card), a vehicle-regn-fee-payer, a home-registration-fee-payer - but nothing where it doesn't want money from me. No ration card. No voter id card. Not on census. If this is my fate, what do you think is the plight of the poor ID-less?

I have no better result from the UID project either (waiting since June 2011; many attempts at follow-up and escalation silently rebuffed). So I won't defend UID on this count.

Now for the other points I've been hearing frequently.

#1. UID & NPR are double the effort, double the cost. Hard to argue, except when you consider that enumeration is very different from enrollment. In order to achieve coverage, even in enumeration you need multiple visits. Even more so, with enrollment.

I don't know about elsewhere, but in Haryana, we pay the operators only upon successful de-duplication -- effectively curtailing artificial enrollment inflation; and keeping costs within reason. Good enough, to curtail a majority of the costs, I think.

Overall, there is some credence to this argument; though it is not 100% duplication as it is criticized to be. Theoretically, this could've been avoided; but in practice I am not so sure. I see the current compromise as a vast improvement over the pre-compromise situation.

#2. UID & NPR cause double the pain to the citizens. Yes it is avoidable. Given that UID has set a scorching pace and high standards of quality of execution, would the NPR set aside its pride and UID do a job it is designed to do? If only prejudices are set aside one might see as a neutral party would. Instead of re-defining a statistical exercise as a deterministic one, NPR might embrace logic and piggy-ride on UID (permanent enrollment centers among other ideas).

This would strengthen the hands of "UID is not really optional" logic of some opponents, but it is still a workable method. It would actually recognize that the NPR's work would never really be 100% done -- it would correctly be designed as an ongoing exercise. So is UID work, of course.

Bottomline: Citizens are definitely inconvenienced by the government's pig-headedness; but to blame the UIDAI alone on this, is nothing but hypocrisy.

#3. NPR is more secure! Of all the tall claims, this is the most laughable. Here again, a personal example might help illustrate. I am sure a vast majority of passport holders will also agree with this.

Ironically for all the famed MHA's well-suitedness on security, it was a good samaritan Sri Lankan national in Bangalore who held me by hand, took me directly into the police commissioner's office, introduced me and got my police verification done in a few minutes. Every other transaction related to my passport (required police verification twice) since then was done by touts without my presence anywhere on the scene. The police officer once came home 3 months after the passport did - to ask for money for verification. 

Yes, I know, passport is MEA's area; but what about the police? How do the NPR proponents expect much better security from other apathetic government employees? These are the same employees who routinely ask that 30+ year-olds be enrolled as eligible for old-age pensions; and intimidate any private sector employee who dared ask questions during biometric enrolments of the said pensions. The same employees who, in panic, declared "dead" even those pensioners with bank accounts (that were opened with biometric enrollment, incidentally) - when they were asked to remove duplicates. Mild protests by NIC officers and yours truly were set aside under the "due process and empowerment" garb.

No, it doesn't inspire any confidence -- unless you are a statistician; in which case, you can find some solace in that most out-of-process (paid-for or otherwise) verifications are also genuine anyway. For all others, the question remains, "how many illegal immigrants got through this allegedly watertight security"? How many genuine citizens are left out not because of security, but because of apathy?

Someone told me about audit trails being a strong point of NPR. And UID isn't? Audit trails mean something when a) the original job hasn't been routinely botched up; b) when people have mechanisms to complain and they use it; and finally c) someone actually looks at those trails and does something about them. All the govt officers I have seen are content to write file notes and DO letters - instead of doing something, anything about security. Including in the UID project. So here is one more area where I can't be accused of bias.

[edit @4-Feb: There is some credence to the idea of community verification apparently being used in NPR. Admittedly, it is a strong method, esp., in rural India - when collecting biographic data. But it leaves the door open for exploitation of the ID-less by the very same power-centers who excommunicate people or order honor killings. This could still be made to work: e.g., biometrics enrollment "anywhere" guarantees identity; other processes for dispute resolution on biographic data.]

Bottomline: Security arguments are lame, IMHO. If you are still worried about fake UID enrollments, please read my blog post Consequences of a fake UID

#4. Two outstanding issues with NPR - that I cannot comment on with the same feeling and authority as the above.

• How is citizenship determined (inclusions and exclusions) in the light of all this? I am yet to finish reading all the relevant documents; as yet I am unconvinced. (yes, as suraiya95 pointed out, the citizenship issue is no longer central to UID vs NPR debates - though not everyone has left it behind just yet)
• What exactly is the meaning of "NPR is mandatory"? It is mandatory for all citizens to enroll? Or mandatory for Census Dept to enroll all citizens? What happens if either party defaults? No clear answers yet; searching for them.

A note of balance before closing:

• In all the above, please note that I did not rate UID as higher than NPR in anything other than the scorching pace and high standards of execution. The idea is not to vilify one in favor of the other; rather to put things in perspective.
• In all my years in working with the government, I have had a chance to work with some very diligent govt officers - including some exemplary police officers and a few passionate regular employees. Most of them suffer silently.

Done correctly, pro-NPR and pro-UID proponents (me included) should bury their hatchets (and egos) and get down to doing a good job. There are people out there with outlandish arguments to derail both sides. Squabbling on this topic will get us nowhere.