UID project : Cost benefit analysis and beyond

Abstract

India, a nation with over 1.2 billion population spread across 32,87,263 sq. km., with more than 35.16 per cent being illiterate (2001 census) and speaking 22 different languages, and following various religions poise a challenge of humungous complexity for implementation a unique identity project. Even if the diversity of the population is ignored, the population size in itself is a mammoth which is 17.48 times UK’s population (2001 census), a nation which rejected the Unique identity project as being unviable. There has been no concrete documentation of the cost of the complete project, but an estimate puts the cost at INR 1.5 Lakh Crore. The cost of failure of such a project for a nation can be heavy which has 27.50% of its population below poverty line and 45.9% of its children below the age of 3 years suffering from malnutrition every yeari . This drives down the point that an implementation of such a project without strong cost benefit analysis might be a huge risk on the nation’s financial expenditureii . In this project, we begin by setting up the context of UID project by introducing the project and explaining various components of the cost structure. We explain the necessity of sound cost benefit analysis and describe a framework for the same. The research done for the project is presented along with the present status of the project. As UID is being linked to three major welfare schemes (Financial Schemes, PDS and NREGA), we identify the loopholes in the strategy and provide recommendations for the improvement of execution so that the cost justifies the benefits of the world’s biggest e-governance initiative.