UIDAI project begins in Nalanda

Munchun Devi, 28, a resident of Masihadeeh village in Nalanda, Bihar, has never heard of Nandan Nilekani. “Is he a sarkari babu (government official)?” she asks. She has no clue that he is the reason why she is standing in a queue, awaiting her turn to submit indelible impressions of her face, fingerprints and iris to the government. In return, she will get a 12-digit number with which every government agency and even banks will identify her for the rest of her life.

Devi is among the two dozen folks from her village who have turned up to participate in a pilot being conducted by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) — the world’s biggest citizen database project, led by its chairman Nilekani. “I thought a movie is being shot here. But I am told this set-up has been created to capture our identities,” she says.

It’s been an eventful summer day for the villagers of Masihadeeh. Earlier in the day, two volunteers had visited their homes to record details about each family member, their occupation, age, etc. The single-page forms were handed back to villagers, duly filled, and they were asked to visit the panchayat (village council) building later in the day for verification. All of this will culminate in 20,000 residents of Nalanda getting an UID number, or ‘Aadhaar’, as it is now called. The pilot is in its last lap now — 19,000 residents have already completed the process that Devi is about to do.

Nalanda district, located 50 miles south-east of Bihar’s capital Patna, along with Mysore in Karnataka and Medak and Krishna districts in Andhra Pradesh, is among the earliest pilots for the identity project. The learning from these trials will form the foundation on which the identification exercise will be rolled out to over a billion citizens. About 600 million will be covered in the first four-and-a-half years.

On the outside, Masihadeeh’s panchayat building, the centre of all the action today, is just another non-descript structure… patched roof and faded, worn walls. Inside, the importance of the project is completely lost on Masihadeeh’s residents. Most of them initially see this as just another government exercise. “I am not sure what UID is, but I am here because it’s a government initiative and I am sure it will bring some good, some day,” says Jagdish Kevat, a 55-year-old farm worker. Like most in 23 lakh residents of the district, Kevat works the ground, producing rice, potato and onion.

The district epitomises the challenges faced in a majority of Indian villages, home to 70% of the nation’s citizens. “We picked up blocks in Nalanda for the UID pilot because this is the toughest anywhere in India — it’s the most backward pocket and is located the farthest from the district headquarters,” says Sanjay Kumar Agarwal, district magistrate and collector of Nalanda.