UID

2 weeks ago, my family began to enlighten me about the urgency to go and register ourselves at the UIDAI centre near my home. Interestingly, although I had heard about UIDAI a lot; I had not seen anything in the news hurrying people up to go and register. So I rushed to the UID website http://uidai.gov.in/ and found the enrollment form was available for download in the downloads section on the website.

Encouraged by this, I tried to find out where my closest enrollment centre was, was there a due date being targetted at each centre, a schedule & process to be followed, any appointment system to get registered etc; only to find lots of documents explaining MOUs, details the biometric devices being used, enrollment camps operational & training documents etc. All good things, but no easy link pointed me to my nearest enrollment centre! Even the FAQs section was not able to help me with my questions.

I will admit all my net-savvy-ness was embarassed to discover that people in my house who weren't net savvy at all, were aware where the UID centre of my locality was! The communication strategy; I realised was something I was impressed about. I had not seen any adverts on TV or in the news informing me about the nearest centre and the process in detail (today I can see the website is updated with photographs showing the process); but somehow housewives & people at home were better informed about the process even before it came on the website!! Was it all supposed to pass by word of mouth? Quite interesting.

I was told, that if I needed to get my enrollment done, I needed to go and be in the queue at the centre right from 6am; with the form filled up; so that when the office opened at 10am, I would be given a token. There are only about 250 tokens given per day; so if you are at the tail of the queue; you won't get a token and may have to go back on another day. I could not avoid the quick maths that triggered off in my head - more than 1000 person hours of time wasted per day per centre to get the token. At least the 1000 person hours were fruitful, they got the token, what about the rest who left the centre frustrated? What a national waste of time, I thought. Could there not be a better way around this? Could there be an appointment system where you call up a helpline number or go to the centre or visit the website, take an appointment and go there & get done in 30 mins?

I decided, I wasn't going to waste my time, I will carry a book and read and some music will help me stay in good humour while waiting in the queue for 4 hours ; I needed to be at the head of the queue to get done at 10.20am sharp. I had to go on a Saturday morning (the centre does not work Sundays); otherwise I had to take a holiday or go late to office - which I certainly did not fancy.

When I reached the centre at 6am on Saturday, I was genuinely delighted to find there were already 16 people queued up. A family of 8 from a very poor family, they seemed to be construction workers; and another family of 4 with little kids 4 & 5 year old, and an old couple. I became the 17th member in the queue. Within 30 minutes the queue had reached the end of the building - about 70 more people had joined us. It was not an orderly queue, but the people who came in were from modest backgrounds, and nobody argued with each other over their position in the queue. A little note mentioning no lists will be entertained was put up on the wall by the UIDAI. Apart from that, there was nothing explaining the process.

Around 7.30ish, one middle aged person who joined the queue started to note the names of people in the queue; and a small huddle around him ensured that the positions of people got mixed up; some people went a few positions ahead in the queue by virtue of their ability to influence this person to write their name in first in that list. This person on his own squeezed 2 names of his own into the list at positions 3 and 4. Seemingly he said, these people had come at 5.40am but had gone home for breakfast! The other people in the queue were'nt happy - they were waiting with little kids since 5.30 and why should these 2 unknown people be priviledged? Another young guy in the queue pointed the note of UIDAI saying no lists are entertained & the matter was settled.

Earlier, at home, I had heard stories of major squirmishes in the queue & fights etc, when neighbours had gone and stood to get enrolled. The crowd I had today with me was very very decent & civilized. I was lucky to have this company. 85% of the crowd was full of very poor people; and I was amazed that they maintained discipline & polite behaviour. They were well informed about the way this worked even though some of them could not read / write! It was interesting that many things I did not know of wrt. the UID process, was known and understood by these people. They all came in with their families in full strength and waited patiently upto 10am. I wondered, how they managed to wake thier little kids up at so early a time and get them ready for the 4 hour queue. They had brought breakfast and lunch along, since they knew they had a long day ahead of them before they could go home. I felt for the old people who were battling with their energy to stand & were patiently waiting in the queue. The queue today was disciplined, I wondered what would happen, if the crowd was not civil - surely people with kids and old people would be suffering the most in such situations! There was nobody managing the queue at the centre. Certainly, we need to give a thought to this queuing process - can it not be made easier for these people?

At 10am sharp,the UIDAI centre opened, and the representatives started handing over tokens. It was heartening to note the punctuality. But couldn't the office open at 9 instead of 10? Would it help?

Inside the centre, there are 4 to 5 stations; each with a row of chairs for people to sit and await their turn. I felt thankful for the chairs. The few families before me got the 1st seat at the 3 stations and I was the one to get the 1st seat at the last station! It takes 20 minutes per head to go through the 10 fingerprints, iris capture, the address-proof and identify proof scan capture process. I had heard stories while waiting in the queue of how if the computer goes down you may be called in on the next day. I wished this wouldn't happen. At the station, the terminal has a monitor which faces you, so you can see if the representative is making spelling mistakes while entering your details into the system and correct her / him. It was good to see that my terminal representative was diligent about entering the details correctly into the system; replete with correct spellings in English and corresponding devnagiri versions.

Finally the mission was accomplished, my UIDAI enrollment work got over as planned at 10.20 am. So much for the 4 hours of waiting.

Hats off to the biometric technology and the software being used to enrol people at the stations - no doubts about this. I am not sure how the back-up & security of this data that's captured on the laptop is being managed. I found a 4 liner on the website saying that the UID database has high security, I am just hoping that the security of the laptop & the data on there, if it's running in an offline mode has also been well thought out.


However, in the end, I just felt that -

a) The UIDAI website should have details of enrollment centers; should help people locate their nearest centre.

b) The queue should be dealt with better to avoid the 4 hours of queing time, it really is a national waste of time; it can be very troublesome for old people / senior citizens and people with young kids & office goers. India is at the forefront of software technology, can't we have some online appointment system? We talk of phone banking and sending votes for television shows via sms; can't the mobile be used effectively to help getting appointments for enrollments?

c) There should be an information counter at the centre - there was nobody designated in the centre to whom someone can approach and fire their flurry of questions and much is left to common sense. There was no board explaining the process to the people.

d) Why should the UIDAI registration centre be closed on Sundays? Isn't that the day when people have holiday and when they can come to get enrolled? In an era when 24 X 7 support is normal why can't we employ the same shift working model to make it convenient for our own people?

Lots of food for thought & action.




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