Aadhar - the card that will change our lives

Aadhar the UID project, the baby of Dr Nilakneni, is now becoming all pervasive. I, as a votary for this could not visualise how this is going to make our lives so much more difficult to hide from the Govt.

I just got a circular from my child’s school asking us to provide her Aadhar number', because government wants it. I am liking this, simply because, it is going to be much easier for the Govt. to connect all this info and know, how many unique children are studying in which school, in case they need to deliver any benefits, they can do so by looking at the linking done by the social welfare department, who again are seeking the same info from those enjoying reservations, scholarships etc.

Similarly all land owners are being asked to provide their Aadhar number in the land records like Patta/Adangal/RR etc, this will help government to know how much land is held in an individuals name, they can then see if the individual is holding land beyond the Land ceiling Act norms. Not only this they are going to connect the fertiliser subsidy to your Aadhar card, so that they know how much subsidy to be provided to each individual based on the land holding.

While enrolling ourselves in PAHAL, we have been asked to connect out LPG connection to the Aadhar card and also then connect our Bank account through the same Aadhar card. There is one more info to the Govt., whether we are also drawing Kerosene (Ration card holders have already been asked to provide their Aadhar numbers) by any chance, then they can ask us to give up one of them for getting subsidy. Look at how much money the Govt. is going to save on subsidies, since there are many people who draw both. Wherever Aadhar linked ration delivery has happened they have noticed substantial drop in off take of heavily subsidised goods like Kerosene. After PAHAL introduction Chennai city has witnessed a surge in the usage of commercial cylinders by 50000 cylinders, about 1.34 crore on subsidy saved per month by OMC.

I am sure most of us have been getting SMS alerts from our bankers asking us to link our Bank account with the Aadhar number. Once done government knows how many bank accounts we hold solely or jointly or in the capacity of a signatory. This info then would be used by the IT department to check if we use any account for hiding incomes. This in particular is going to be used in the case of Fixed Deposit's (FD), where many people put their unaccounted income in FD's to either please their banker or for their own reasons like avoiding TDS deduction. All this welath will now be tagged to the Aadhar number holder and naturally he will be expected to start being more truthful to the Income tax department.

We have already started linking our Voter ID with Aadhar number, this will eliminate number of duplicate votes, sometimes within the same city or elsewhere including another state.

IRCTC is asking us to link our passenger list with Aadhar numbers, this would help the Govt. to know how often we travel, which class we normally travel and if required to even check if all this travel is reflected in our income and expenditure statement. This might become a necessity for those who are going to the counter to book the tickets over the days.

I had even written an article about linking Aadhar numbers with the place of living, this will then tell the Govt., how many properties each individual is holding, at some point of time the old circulated joke about a guy trying to place an order for a Pizza and his whole life is read out to him by the order receiving agent.

There were many sceptics who criticised the idea of the UID and went hammer and tongs by writing many an article, i had seen this as a very powerful tool and now it is proving to be more than what i imagined. If you ask me it is for the good of this nation where we by habit try to hide lot of things other than income.

Corruption & Common man

Oxford Dictionary defines corruption as a 'dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery', and Bribe is defined as 'dishonestly persuade (someone) to act in one’s favour by a gift of money or other inducement' .

We are all proud common men who will berate the politicians about the corruption and take potshots at them through social media and other means. However, how much are we to blame, is our hand clean in this regard. There are few instances of corruption we all indulge in,

• Not insist on a bill, if the store keeper tells we save on tax
• Jump the queue to either to get a ticket or food
• Be silent on subsidies we enjoy, though we don't deserve them (free TV, ration sugar, LPG/Kerosene.... list goes on)
• Buy something without verifying the claims, because we get a discount/free gift 'only for the day kind' (Campa Cola Campus in Mumbai is a fit case)

These are something which we the common man indulge in our own lives everyday and still say these are trivial matters when it comes to large scale corruption by our politicos n babus. But is this not the same trend that they are following albeit in a larger scale.

Primarily it looks like corruption is part of our DNA, just like violating the rules is part of our DNA. How can we expect our next generation not to indulge in corrupt practices when, they see corruption within ourselves.

While politicians and Babu's take the cake in terms of corruption, just because they are in a position to influence policy, today no body seems to be exempt from the corrupt practices. One of the noblest professions, medical practices is the worst in terms of corrupt practices. Today doctors get commissions on tests that they prescribe, referrals they make to bigger hospitals, free trips on medicines they prescribe in the guise of medical conferences. All these in addition to various gifts that are handed over by the sales reps, when they come to meet the doctor to introduce/remind about their products.

The so called fourth estate, Media accepts gifts during press briefings, accepts envelops filled with cash from corrupt officers, advertisements in lieu of not exposing corporates, is this not corruption? What moral authority they can exercise to question other people indulging in corruption.

Now it comes to us,

• when we build renovate our homes, many a time we do not even submit a plan for approval, even if we do, we don't follow it and deviate to the extent it is convenient to us. We place our building material on the road (inconveniencing the others), pay bribes to the officers who call on us to stop the irregularities so that they can have a nelson eye on our deviations. How much are we contributing to the corruption of the system, if there is a danger of demolition, we run to the politician who can influence the officer, and in turn are forced to keep quiet when the politician indulges in a bigger corrupt practice.
• When a cop catches us for traffic violation we prefer to induce him to take a bribe rather than pay the penalty and come on record.
• We are ready to pay bribes left right n centre to get our work done, be it a driving licence, ration card or anything for that matter. We also say we are forced to do this because we are left with no choices.

The system is so bad, we see corruption spreading to the lowest levels, a voter has no qualms of taking money, liquor, gifts etc to vote for a particular candidate, today they are taking from all candidates and splitting the votes of the family to all those who have paid (this much honesty is still there), A parking centre assistant is willing to take cash in lieu of a receipt, A railway TT will allow you to travel A/C class on a ordinary ticket if you share the fare difference with him, A banquet manager will give less number of plates count to his management, for the party you host, if you take care of him. This list can go on and on.

Government has no qualms of black marketing in the name of 'Tatkal' by creating a shortage and asking us to pay extra for early delivery. Look at the case of Telephones at one point of time we were paying Rs.16000 for a telephone connection officially to the government because connections were hard to get, today with plenty of availability the telecom companies come to us luring with offers. Same thing with Maruthi cars, today after liberalisation and plenty of models to chose from, we do not have to pay 'Tatkal' money to get a car. However this black-marketing is still on with railways, wonder when will that ever get removed. This i believe is as good as speed money/Bribe since we are paying extra money to get a out of turn benefit.

With corruption all around us and we being active apart of it, what is the solution.

1. Bring in transparency in all government activity
2. All allotments, plan approvals, decision making should be made available in a transparent manner to all, by putting it up on the internet.
3. No out of the line allotments irrespective of influence, even we the people should desist from asking and be prepared to wait.
4. Direct remittance of subsidy to the beneficiary bank account rather than doles, as it is today
5. APMC yards should put up prices on the net, reach out to farmers by SMS about the prices, so that the middle men do not take the farmers for a ride.
6. Every govt office to have a citizen's charter detailing how many days for each work
7. All bureaucrats who are involved in decision making be the first to be made accountable when there is a fraud detected.
8. All corporates indulging in corruption by offering bribes should be barred from selling/offering their products/services in the market for a period of 6 years
9. If a Judicial officer is caught for corruption, death penalty straight away on conviction, irrespective of the quantum of the misdeed.
10. Any politician convicted on corruption/ Disproportionate assets charges, should be barred from contest for any election/post along with his/her family members for a lifetime.

One might say, is this all possible, may be could be, first lets change to ask for the change