The firestorm of controversies around Aadhaar project – including the latest buzz that a Parliamentary panel may suggest withdrawal of the National Identification Authority of India Bill in its present form –have put IT vendors involved in the project in a bind.
The Aadhaar project rides heavily on technology and IT services blocks such as consulting, application development & maintenance, contact centre services, biometric solutions and training services.
But simmering differences within the Government over the implementation of the project, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI's) future enrolment mandate and funding have raised worries. IT vendors rue the uncertainties surrounding the project but are hopeful that the project will not be derailed given the social benefits (plugging of leakages by linking Aadhaar numbers with welfare schemes).
“If the project comes under a cloud, it will be a disaster. However, it is not likely to translate into a financial loss for us as a vendor, because we have valid contracts in place which surely will be honoured,” says Mr Rostow Ravanan, Chief Financial Officer of MindTree. Last year, MindTree had bagged a contract to provide application development and maintenance services for the Aadhaar project.
Emphasising that the project itself was a global technological showcase given its sheer scale, Mr Ravanan said, “If these technologies are not utilised for the benefit of the masses, it will pour cold water over an exciting opportunity.”
A senior official of a large Indian IT company – that is in the race for UIDAI's much-delayed Managed Services Provider contract – said that even if a Parliamentary Committee was to recommend tweaking of the Bill, it would not mean an end for the project, per se. “But yes, it will extend the timelines,” admitted the official, who did not wish to be named.
Industry observers concede that differences within the Government over the execution of the project should have been resolved much before the project was flagged off.
“India has not yet come to a stage of institutionalised e-governance roll out. Even today, the progress of e-Government projects closely track the initiative and energy of individual officials,” he added.
Controversies galore
The Aadhaar project has been riddled by a spate of controversies. There have been differences between UIDAI and the Home Ministry over the issue of enrolment beyond the current mandate of 20 crore. Besides, Registrar General of India and UIDAI have locked horns on whether the Aadhaar data can be used for the National Population Register. The Census Commissioner has reportedly declined to take UIDAI's data citing the absence of verification of those who are enrolling.
IT companies that Business Line spoke to concede that a lot of investments have already flowed into execution of various components of the project.
“It is not only the capital…massive manpower has been mobilised to collect data from the field. Of course, everyone is concerned…No one knows what will happen post March 2012,” says a senior official of another IT company that is involved in enrollments.
When contacted, Mr R.S. Sharma, Director-General of UIDAI, said he was not aware of the view taken by the Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance on Thursday, and hence would not comment.
Asked about the ramification of the ongoing controversies on the project roll-out, Mr Sharma said, “For vendors it is only a question of who will do the enrollments… Enrollments will continue to happen at the ground level no matter whichever agency ultimately does it. And it will happen on the platforms and technology, the same UID standards…so I do not think there is any reason for the industry to get worried over the issue.”