New $1 Billion RIC Project Casts Doubts on Aadhaar

“New $1 Billion RIC Project Casts Doubts on Aadhaar” is an AEG India article by Ravi, published on 15 March 2013. The report examines the Indian government’s proposed Resident Identity Card project, its overlap with Aadhaar, and the concerns raised about duplication and policy coherence.

Article Details
Full Text
Context and Background

Article Details

📰 Published in:: AEG India
📅 Date:: 15 March 2013
👤 Author:: Ravi
📄 Type:: News Report
📰 Newspaper Link:: Not available

Full Text

New Delhi – The Indian Government is going ahead with a new project dubbed RIC that will effectively undermine the existing UIDAI – Unique Identification Authority of India project and will cost a whopping $1 billion.

The National Population Register and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) are the two organizations which will capture the biometric details of the citizens and will develop the resident identity card (RIC) and create the unique identifier number (UID) popularly known as Aadhar number respectively.

Both the RIC and UID projects are designed to unify the distribution of social and welfare services to the citizens. Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of Centre for Internet and Society India, said that the ID number and the ID smartcard are both different and are not at all complementary as declared by the Indian Government previously.

"The ID number and the ID smart card are two completely separate visions. They cannot be mixed up together to make some kind of salad which can be consumed partly," added Abraham.

He said that it was easy for the Indian government to proceed simultaneously with both the projects rather than cancelling the much criticized Aadhaar project.

Minister P. Karunakaran, on March 12 in the Lok Sabha, asked R.P.N. Singh, the Minister of State, to clarify the confusion over the proposed biometric identity card and the UID (Aadhaar number). The government has planned to spend more than US$1 billion to issue the Indian citizens a resident identity card (RIC) which will also feature the Aadhaar number as well.

Context and Background

This report appeared during the period when Aadhaar was being rolled out alongside other identity and welfare databases. The article reflects a recurring concern in that phase, namely whether multiple identity systems were being designed in parallel without clear separation of purpose.

The piece also shows how policy debates around Aadhaar often centred on cost, duplication, and administrative overlap rather than only on technology. Sunil Abraham’s comment is directly relevant to that discussion because it questions whether the proposed card and the Aadhaar number were being treated as complementary when they served different functions.