Give 5 kg grains every month to all Aadhaar holders

Public Distribution System(PDS) in India where the NFSA stipulates 35 kg of rice or wheat to every family has led to exclusion.

In Jharkhand due to non linking of ration card with the aadhaar number people have been denied rations which has lead to some deaths. There is a solution after all.

If 80 crore people are included in the ration card database and if some of the poor people are still excluded it would be wise to deliver 5 kg of rice or wheat every month to anyone with an aadhaar card at the rate at which APL families are provided grains. Such ration could be sold on aadhaar authentication only.

It is not necessary to link such aadhaar numbers with ration card. Anyone not in the ration database should still be included.

The 15 lakh fetish

I was recently astounded to know how the critics of modi are hell bent on getting 15 lakh rupees in their bank accounts. They all are asking 15 lakh from a chaiwala PM who calculated that if all the black money that has gone out of the country be brought back it can be distributed to every person in the country and each one will get 15 lakh rupees. FYI 15 lakh rupees equals 1.5 million rupees which is approx $21,430 US dollars.

Silly Critics !!!

Thou shall not Demonetize

This is the time for reflection.
This is the time for introspection.
This is the time for action.
This is the time to enjoy.
So many days past the Demonetization Date(8th Nov,2016) we are still not clear if the harmful effects of demonetization were worth the advantages. No one can measure the costs and benefits of this step without being partial or biased.
I may say there cannot be an impartial brush to paint an unbiased picture of demonetization.

What ever has happened has happened. We cannot dwell in the past. We need to move on.

Our country has vast resources and commentators have said most of them go for a waste. When compared with wrong policies of import substitution and license Permit Raj demonetization goes down as a calculated mis-step. And not wakeful dreams of commanding heights of the economy.

It was a risky manoeuvre that cost some lives, some people some money and some people source of income.

Critics are convinced that it was an unmitigated disaster. They do not need any torch or light to see the writing on the wall if at all they are seeing. They are convinced that it indeed was so.

When someone follows you blindly and you don't like it, you tend to run towards a ditch and do an unexpected somersault over it hoping the followers fall into it(Sic).

So much for your followers are your own "Bhayiyon aur behenon" who are blindfolded by their love for you just like the critics blinded by their hatred.

There cannot be a neutral person who neither likes you nor dislikes you. Least of all ... How could you expect such a nonexistent entity to paint a picture of demonetization?

Followers of virat kohli are in love with his batting and are more than willing to give him chance after chance even if he is not in form. He has his own detractors though. Mr. Modi too I hope will get many more chances of coming good with the bat. It is then that he needs to swear certain Don't Dos like

"Thou Shall Not Demonetize"

Needed a UBI and DBT combo

With discussion around universal basic income in India heating up several politicians around the country have expressed varying opinions. One class of people say we should move completely to UBI and stop all subsidies. Another class of people say we should continue with the current system and try and include as many as possible within the welfare mechanism. Another class of people say that we should have DBT coexist with UBI and UBI should be in addition to DBT.

I am neither an economist nor studied commerce but want to suggest a few ideas.

Poverty in India is so debilitating that I have this cringe and guilt feeling about all the comforts I have.

I also want absolute poverty to end as soon as possible.

Hence it is my duty to suggest alternatives before the government. We could keep discussing for ages but only when things on ground start moving is when real changes happen.

Direct Benefit Transfer(DBT) is expanding at break neck speed and covering almost all schemes of the central government. Since aadhaar is being insisted upon all of these schemes a thought occurred to me that we could have both DBT and UBI co-exist.

Every person should be entitled to some basic income which is redeemable by subsidies that person receives. If the person does not receive any subsidies then he should be earning a universal basic income. This concept necessitates measuring how much benefit every person receives. It looks to be the right approach.

Every person should be free to choose UBI or in kind benefit or choose to opt out.

Also subsidies are a concept unique to India and it definitely is a dying concept. What we should be doing is to enable people to earn decent amounts of income. So a life cycle approach and long term view of ending all subsidies need to be taken.

As regards the economics of subsidies, the UBI+DBT combo does not put too much additional burden on the exchequer and solves a big dilemma in front of the government. It has to take a decision on UBI soon and it also wants subsidies to be limited to the absolutely needy.

Aadhaar Roundup - 5

(Disclaimer: factual accuracy of the numbers is contested)

Very soon we will be having more than 100% Aadhaar enrolment in a majority of the states. Since the last Aadhaar Roundup Number 4 was way back in 2014, I am going to list out the outcomes of all those significant use cases of aadhaar.

PMJDY makes use of aadhaar in a big way: We all know PMJDY has been a major success. It has allowed govt to channel subsidies and improved self respect among people.

New Direct Benefit Transfer to save 14000 crore: We all know govt claims to have saved 57,000 between 2014 and 2017 crore which makes this 14,000 crore sum look paltry.

Indian govt launches biometric attendance system: More than 2 lakh employees of the central govt are making attendance daily using AEBAS. 45k employees are still outside the purview of this and hence may face action.

Aadhaar number to be included in service book: This measure has detected fake employees on the rolls of the govt esp in Kashmir.

Real estate transactions to be tracked via aadhaar:  This has not been mandatory but it is optional.

Mobile connections to be linked with aadhaar numbers: 60% mobile connections(as on 3rd march 2018) and 17 crore PAN cards have been aadhaar linked.

Human-Less Banking: Even though automation will take away a few jobs it will benefit the economy by putting people into more productive employment.

Government to link all social schemes with aadhaar: More than 420 schemes of the central govt have made aadhaar mandatory and nearly 65 crore people have benefited. 3 lakh 44 thousand crore rupees has been transferred into the accounts of people using DBT mechanism. Govt claims to save 75k crore from this.

Government planning aadhaar based Health Scheme: While this has taken a long time to come to fruition it has recently been declared that Aayushman bharat will give cashless treatment upto 5 lakh to 50 crore or 10 crore households.

Transport Department to seed aadhaar number of vehicle owners and licenses: This is an ongoing exercise and aims to reduce duplication in driving licenses and stricter punishment for law breakers.

Indian city to use Aadhaar numbers to clean voter lists: Election Commission of India is going to link all aadhaar numbers with EPIC/Voter Cards. Nearly 33 crore aadhaar to voter card linkages have already been done.

India to launch biometric airport entry pilot: Several airports are using this mechanism to enter airports.

Marriage portals to firewall fake grooms: This and not only this Skype is using Aadhaar to authenticate its users.

Prisoners to be enrolled for aadhaar: All prisoners have been enrolled into aadhaar and in several instances it was not known that they were lodged in jails and upon receipt of their aadhaar at homes people have become aware that they in fact were lodged in jails and not dead as presumed earlier.

AIIMS launching portal to let people book beds online: E-hospital project and issuance of UHID has been a success and the dashboard shows every day progress.

Apart from all these several positives have come due to aadhaar. Children who were enrolled into aadhaar and subsequently lost and lodged in government child protection centres have been united with their parents due to aadhaar biometrics.

Aadhaar linkage to PAN and Mobile phones is raising eyebrows. Not only that Aadhaar to bank account linkage is causing people to protest the high handed measure. Nearly 87 crore bank accounts have been linked with aadhaar till date.

Apart from these successes aadhaar has found uses in delivering a variety of services that people make use of every day such as renting bikes, availing credit and investing in stock markets. Govt is trying to link aadhaar with diseases such as TB and AIDS so that it could be used as a tool for epidemiological studies. Related field of econometric studies at a granular level is going to glean a lot of new information.

Indian Census is passé - Go for Digital Census in 2021

In the times of Aadhaar and Digital India does Census even have any meaning? I mean since the colonial times(1871 to be exact) Indians have been counted to keep track of the population. The most recent census was the 15th held in the year 2011. After the Aadhaar project was launched in 2010 Sept 30th nearly 88% of the population has been allotted an Aadhaar number.

Every 10 years school teachers are faced with enormous task of door-to-door survey in an area near their school. It is an onerous task which apart from election duties saps the energies of the teachers. The consumer affairs and public distribution department keeps track of families as a unit. There are other departments too like the health department which may be interested in ensuring family planning and hence keep records of the people. These demographic information collected during census does not go beyond data collection and analysis. Rarely is data from census used in any meaningful way as part of planning for welfare. 

Planning and Implementation of Digital Census

Census data being collected at the family level, there should be a Data Collection Standards Committee which decides what data needs to be mandatory and what is optional. Next a digital database created which could be populated with census data collected from every enumerator. The digital census is not a new concept and it has been implemented in many other countries.

If aadhaar database is maintained well it would seem that there would not be any necessity of having a Census at all. Births and Deaths would be reflected in the aadhaar database. If aadhaar numbers of family members are collected during census and actual number of families or dwelling units counted it would aid in better targeting of subsidies.

Targeting of Subsidies to a Family

Since every family would be counted, this can make India a data rich nation. Epidemiological studies, Internal migration, econometric analysis etc can aid the government in reaching the masses in distress for help.

Aadhaar for Dummies

Aadhaar has become such a complicated technology that it would need elucidation by the leading lights of the day. 

First up - It was just beyond the reach of the critics to understand its benefits. Secondly they were hankering for a full stop to the project arguing that it endangers people's right to life. They definitely need to read this book called "Aadhaar for Dummies".

Dummy aadhaar numbers such as the Virtual-ID has further complicated the technology and it sometimes becomes difficult to convince the ordinary citizens that it was for their own good.

Can we predict farmer distress and prevent farmer suicides

This can definitely be done with the help of machine learning if the data for all the farmers who had taken the loans is available at hand.Different attributes can be taken into account while creating a model that predicts the probability of a farmer suicide like the crop for which they are taking loan, season, success rate of the crop, water availability at the given region etc and once the model is ready one can predict the suicide of the farmer.

Aadhaar Virtual ID patch