“He could be built for $20 million…”: Hotmail Founder Blasts Aadhaar Project, Claiming $1.3 Billion Waste
In a scathing critique, Sabeer Bhatia, the co-founder of Hotmail, has recently expressed his thoughts on the India’s Aadhaar project, one of the ambitious initiatives undertaken by the government aimed at providing identity verification to each citizen. Unfortunately, Bhatia is no fan of this project, labelling it an unnecessary and money-wasting scheme.
Speaking on the project, Bhatia stated that had he been responsible for building an identity verification system like Aadhaar, he would have done so for a staggering $20 million, not $1.3 billion. It’s clear he is unimpressed with the project’s progress and financial strain it has on the country’s economy.
Under the Aadhaar project, biometric data – including fingerprints and iris scans – is collected for each individual registered, creating an extensive database in the process. The aim, as mentioned above, is to provide a verification system for accessing various government-funded services, jobs, and personal benefits. Nonetheless, the scope of the scheme has raised legitimate concerns about user privacy, national security, and the sheer logistical complexity of gathering and managing all this data.
Bhatia’s harsh statement has sparked conversation about the transparency and efficiency in the way taxpayer money is used. It adds fuel to existing debates regarding corruption and waste, which are frequent issues in development projects of significant scale.
So, what contributed to this waste, according to Bhatia? In simple terms, India’s bureaucracy! He claims, “It took them three-and-a-half years to do the first million authentication. And 1.9 billion is [sic] probably going to require another three or four years and a lot of money.” Evidently, he believes government red tape contributed to the huge financial outlays.
While proponents of the program argue that these measures are in place to better serve the 1.4 billion Indian populace, Bhatia is doubtful about the merits of the strategy. “Nobody has really [sic] spoken about the potential risks,” Bhatia argues, citing both privacy concerns as well as difficulties in updating old data. Another point of worry is the time it took Aadhaar to move from the draft stage to successful implementation, the latter being slow and cumbersome for many users who have faced registration issues.
At the heart of the issue lie questions about who should be granted access to confidential information, safeguards for privacy risks, and better management of allocated funds. Moreover, critics often point out concerns about the actual benefits the majority of the citizenry derive from this massive ID project.
Of course, experts and officials maintain that the government’s Aadhaar project has undeniable benefits, allowing for better administrative efficiency and facilitating access to several essential services that were previously disjointed. Undoubtedly, though, there persists a strong doubt about the best way to have executed this immense project, raising questions about long-term viability in the process.
