Feasibility and Scalability of G2C Social-Welfare Transactions on Cloud-Based 'Aadhaar' UID of India

‘Aadhaar’ – the Unique Identification (UID) Project of India has been much in the focus as well as in controversy over the last three years, more so since February 2009 when the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) was established. In April 2010, the project got rechristened as 'Aadhaar,' meaning 'foundation,' whereas it also is interpreted by the UIDAI as 'Aap Ka Adhikar' (meaning 'Your Right') to 'Aam Admi Ka Adhikaar' ('The Right of a Common Man') in its various advertisements to reach out the vast 1.21 billion populace, subsequently curtailed to 600 million and existing ones. The ambitious project had remained much talked about – due to a variety of reasons, starting from security purposes, privacy issues, reliability of biometric identification in a nation like India to even to take care of a leaky and non-targeted subsidy schemes of the Government towards social welfare. In India, from late 1980s, when former Prime Minister Mr. Rajiv Gandhi highlighted the degree of leaks in subsidies meant for the poor and under privileged, it is often stated that hardly 10% of the actual subsidy spent by the Government reaches the intended recipient. Subsequently, future uses of Aadhaar UID have been often extended to possibilities of direct cash transfers – be it for fertilizers to domestic LPGs to PDS (Public Distribution System covering essential food and fuel) to even taking care of absenteeism of students and teachers alike in primary classes in Government-run schools. Media reports suggested that actual spent on social welfare oriented subsidies for financial year 2012-13 is likely to be close to $55 billion. There has been also active speculation in media that in financial year 2013-14, Government wants to direct around $40 billion of this subsidy through Direct cash Transfer, a large part of which will be through Aadhaar-based verification process. This paper takes views from traditional Project Management perspective of Aadhaar UID from various secondary sources (primary data collection failed as questionnaire to UIDAI remained unanswered), and scrutinizes how this project is supposed to deliver to the various social welfare needs identified, both from the feasibility and scalability perspectives. Essentially many of the uses of the Aadhaar UID fall under the traditional Transaction Processing Systems (TPS) category. These demographic data, which covers socio-economic to others needed for the TPS to be completed are dynamic, and are not of the type of 'timeless' data. This paper examines the project scope, the creeping scope, the methodology adopted and its evolution – and thereby examines how the project is likely to deliver on much of these often reported Aadhaar-linked TPS-services in areas of G2C social welfare subsidies, on a scalable and sustainable manner, for a country of India’s size and diversity. The findings highlight a reinventing the wheel approach where probably other less complex, more feasible and scalable solutions exists.