Looking at the article seems more like a 0.7 version, not 0.1. Also, sometimes it's important to make a release and patch it later
Yeah, the trick is to know when these "sometimes" are. For example, the "move fast break things" rule was applied for India's biometric unique ID card which resulted in people climbing trees to authenticate their cards to get their daily food [0], not allowing access to power/education/daily benefits [1] or transferring benefits to someone else due to errors and fighting to get your daily wages because of "system errors" [2].
Life is not software. There are some releases which you cannot patch.
[0] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/need-internet-to-bu...
[1] https://scroll.in/article/834418/by-making-aadhaar-mandatory...
[2] https://scroll.in/article/833487/aadhaar-trouble-how-a-woman...
Before Aadhar, these benefits would disappear due to corruption even before reaching the needy while with Aadhar, millions of people have suddenly got bank accounts and get direct Benefits transfer from the government.
The other context you might miss is that in general, the top rung of the civil service cadre is generally fairly competent (they're recruited from extremely competitive examinations, and in general not promoted from below). It's on them to generally take decisions on ground when intent and process don't match in things like GST rollout. I'm fairly certain they'll try to do their best to avoid adverse headlines.
Curious - What would make you think so?
> Before Aadhar, these benefits would disappear due to corruption even before reaching the needy while with Aadhar, millions of people have suddenly got bank accounts and get direct Benefits transfer from the government.
You are mixing up many things here. Bank accounts have got nothing to do with Aadhar. Bank accounts don't mean much when you do not have meaningful access. There is a digital and banking divide in India which the person who has Internet access find it difficult to understand. Once you read RBI's Financial Inclusion report you'd understand why.
Benefits via Aadhar have been grossly overstated - there has been a recent filing in the court regarding this.
> I'm fairly certain they'll try to do their best to avoid adverse headlines.
I'm fairly certain given the responses by people who control Aadhar - this wouldn't be addressed. Heck, Aadhar is passed as a "Finance Bill" when it clearly is not.
For decades people have been saying that the money from grants/subsidies/schemes for poor vanishes between the government and the recipient due to the multiple "middlemen" involved and cutting that out is the way to solve it. Now that is also not the acceptable solution? Then what is the solution that falls under the category of "meaningful access"?
> There is a digital and banking divide in India which the person who has Internet access find it difficult to understand.
Yes there is a digital divide but what does having bank accounts got to do with it? Computer illiterate people have been going to banks for decades.
> Benefits via Aadhar have been grossly overstated - there has been a recent filing in the court regarding this
The idea of Aadhar is to have an identifier like a social security number. It is not a unique idea and Aadhar is not the only way to do it. But the idea itself has merits - especially for financial transactions. So many of transactions in India have been hidden from the taxman because there was lack of the necessary setup to link/consolidate flow of money to a person/business. Aadhar + increased digitisation and reduction in (mainly high value) cash transactions makes tax evasion more difficult. If this idea doesn't have merit then what is your proposal?
These are things that are being done to address decades long problems and obviously that won't be perfect. If you have suggestions for improvements/alternative solutions, then feel free to list them. All I'm seeing is criticism without any suggestions.
You say that you need an identifier. We have one.
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Transactions were hidden from the taxman.
How does AADHAR fix this? IT doesn't.
You've fallen in love with the idea, without doing the patriotic thing, which is to actually assess it.
Yes cutting the middleman is the solution but there are various ways of cutting the middleman. The onus is on the people who support it to show that Aadhar indeed cuts the middleman and improves the said goal.
> Then what is the solution that falls under the category of "meaningful access"?
The parent comment attributed Aadhar to opening of bank accounts. I responded by saying that opening of bank accounts is not a good proxy for meaningful access to bank accounts. There's a difference.
> Yes there is a digital divide but what does having bank accounts got to do with it? Computer illiterate people have been going to banks for decades.
That was exactly the point, I asked. What has Aadhar got to do with bank accounts?
> The idea of Aadhar is to have an identifier like a social security number.
Yeah - except that Aadhar is not anything like SSN.
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/aadhaar-vs-so...
https://scroll.in/article/823570/despite-the-comparisons-ind...
> So many of transactions in India have been hidden from the taxman because there was lack of the necessary setup to link/consolidate flow of money to a person/business. Aadhar + increased digitisation and reduction in (mainly high value) cash transactions makes tax evasion more difficult. If this idea doesn't have merit then what is your proposal?
The same way it is been done in all other countries without a biometric ID card.
> If you have suggestions for improvements/alternative solutions, then feel free to list them. All I'm seeing is criticism without any suggestions.
An inherent flawed idea can't be made perfect. More reading on why : http://www.lse.ac.uk/management/research/identityproject/
Ok so there are differences between Aadhar and SSN - it is a different system, uses biometrics and has other differences. Just being different doesn't make it bad.
> The same way it is been done in all other countries without a biometric ID card.
And which of all those "other countries" is a developing nation, the size of India, with an endemic corruption issue and socio-economic challenges? What is the solution that worked in those countries you allude to, that would work for India?
> An inherent flawed idea can't be made perfect. More reading on why : http://www.lse.ac.uk/management/research/identityproject/
I went through the links on this page - half of them result in "page not found". Anyway, reading this gave me the impression of it being in context of UK. So I read this article about UK abolishing its national identity register[1]. The main takeaways seem to be that there were privacy concerns and they saved a good lot of cash. Frankly, with a country with a massive problem of corruption and huge amount of hidden transactions (none of which UK suffers from to the same degree as far as I know), I am (and I think Indian government is), more concerned about expanding the tax net and capturing lost revenue. Regarding the concerns about biometrics, we have had tons of schemes on which the corrupt middlemen have collected funds due to the poor. When the poor guy went to the disbursement office to collect the grants, he was shown a register where somebody had already signed and collected the funds. Biometrics avoids cases of impersonation and bank account helps direct credit of funds. I didn't see any alternative solution mentioned in the links you provided so if you have anything concrete, feel free to share.
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/may/27/theresa-may...
:)
Joke of the century.
>>The other context you might miss is that in general, the top rung of the civil service cadre is generally fairly competent
In my experience while dealing with these people while working on my start ups. These people are the biggest morons you will ever meet in your whole life.
>>they're recruited from extremely competitive examinations, and in general not promoted from below
Passing an exam(Through rote memorization) some 30 years back, is no measure of productivity or efficiency in a bureaucratic career. These are highly corrupt people, who make it up in life through a 'Yes, Minister' lifestyle.
>>It's on them to generally take decisions on ground when intent and process don't match in things like GST rollout.
Do care to check upon how much an average income tax commissioner earns through bribes.
As far as I am concerned, release first, patch later worked wonderfully for UID, and it will probably be similar for GST.
Of course, the classic ad hominem fallacy.
> The food and money wasn't even reaching the correct people. The guy who climbed a tree would probably have gotten kicked around by a bunch of babus and still not got his due. There are problems with every new tech, but if you criticize everything it just makes no sense. Give credit where credit is due.
This right here is exactly the problem. Trying to find out a tech solution to a problem which is not caused by technology.
> As far as I am concerned, release first, patch later worked wonderfully for UID, and it will probably be similar for GST.
Easy to say that when your life doesn't depend on it.
> Of course, the classic ad hominem fallacy.
That's not ad hominem.
Before you say "Pakistan", think about it for a second. Don't fall for the security theater.
I am not opposed to tax reform but I think we are not addressing the root problem here.
I haven't seen any number that suggests so.
My point, is they really need to collect data or both sides are just going to keep spouting meaningless crap without any clear way to find an answer.
MVPs in government policy don't really work as in software. Things move slow, patches come late or never. Bugs form constituencies that lobby for the bug. With policy, you really do need to try your best to get it right the first time.