India UUID program

Last month, Govt. of India roped in Infosys co-chairman Nandan Nilekani to head one of the most prestigious e-gov iniatives Unique Identification program. Under this program the unique id will be provided to every citizen of India.So, in order to run this program in a professional way, India's priminster request Mr. Nilekani to head this prestigious project. Mr. Nilekani without any doubt accepted the offer and step down as the co-chairman of Infosys.

But though India's prime minster Dr Manmohan Singh tried to make this program bureaucratic free, by giving Mr. Nilekani a rank of a Cabinet minister. But this project in itself comes with lot of chalenges. The chalenges which I can identify are :

1. Data collection : India has a population of more than 1 Billion people, spread in rural and urban areas of India, though demographic data is maintained but its never consistent.

2. Data maintenance : Nilekani team has to think how data consistency can be maintained. What will happen when a person is born, when he/she is dead, when somebody submit his/her citizenship, when somebody takes a new Indian Citizenship, what happen in case of dual citizenship? Though there are some dept. who still handle this data, but there are no dept. for other stuff.

3. Forgery : If you have "Juggad", then any thing can be possible in India, from passport, driving license, fake documents anything, so this is the top most uphill task which Nilekani and his team has to take in and how this Jugaad technology can be avoided in this national level presitgious project.

4. Secuirty : Once the data is ready, then this data will be shared to different govt. dept.,but how the govt. can ensure the data security.

Though there are many other challenges which certainly will be coming in the way of Mr. Nilekani when he finally come out with his draft version for this project.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Nandan Nilekani joins Indian government (ted.com)
• India Undertakes Ambitious ID Card Project (nytimes.com)

Thanks&Regards,
Mohit

Indian rail budget is out.

UPA government after winning the General elections with full majority, presented the first railways budget by the current Indian railway minister Mamta Banerjee. According, to Mamta ji, its a budget for the aam aadmi.

The major action items of this budget are :

1. Launch of "ijjat card" at the cost of Rs 25, so that poor people can travel upto 100 km without any hassels.

2. Launch of special double decker AC trains to meet the YUVA generation requirements .

3. Proposal to set up 50 World Class railway stations, which are fully equipped shopping malls, high level of cleanliness and security.

4. Making Tatkal service cheaper and less time consuming.

5. No, change in the passenger and freight charges.

But I think and other people like me certainly think that, how these plans will be implemented. And will Railways ministry provide the same level of revenue margins as during the reign of Mr. Lalu Yadav. How railways ministry can ensure passenger safety and provide sanitation facilities to its passengers.

Thanks&Regards,
Mohit

Air India debacle

Air India, India's official airline carrier is certainly in a doom state. Last month, it stopped salry of its employees. But the real question is why Air India is a state of debacle, while other Airlinw players in Indian airspace, though not making that much profit, but still performing far better ter than the Indian national carrier.

The reason for a debacle can be :

1. Air India system is surrounded by n numbers of bureaucrat, which are running this organization as a social enterprise rather than a capitalist enterprise.

2. Even in its dismissal economic position, Air India top management still enjoy the free passes not for them but for their entire family. Thus making this institution a debt ridden instituion.

3. Air India, still don't follow any strategic tie ups with other International airlines, thus making them aloof in their business. Look at the other national carrier like Luftansa and Emirates, bith both the carriers are making fablous business.

4. Air India employ more no. of employee per aircraft then any of the airline carrier in the country, which in turn sucking its profits.

I think Air India should bring in top professional to its board, who can try to revive this failing organization.

Thanks&Regards,
Mohit Kumar