Even as the cabinet gave its nod this week to the revised national identification authority of India (NIAI) Bill, UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani defended the absence of legislative backing to the authority so far. Referring to the pension fund regulatory authority of India (PFRDA), which has been running on executive fiat, he said, “If PFRDA could run for ten years on an executive order, why not UIDAI?"

The PFRDA was set up by the government in 2003, but the pension bill, which provided legislative back up, was passed only this year.  

Nilekani was delivering a public lecture on “India and the Third Industrial Revolution” here on Thursday, laying emphasis on the technology intervention in universalising services and refining the beneficiaries’ database, referring to Aadhaar enabled service delivery model.

In a lecture which lasted for half an hour, Nilekani mentioned UID not even once but referred to a new and improved identity scheme needs to "leapfrog" to. He did not comment on the supreme court judgment stating that the matter was sub-judice. 

The constant lack of transparency in implementing Aadhaar and the current hurry of the government have been reported with much zeal in the media. However, neither did Nilekani try nor could he provide any clarity on the deepening mystery of Aadhaar. Instead, he chose to tread the safe path of elaborating the advantages of technology. He said that the government was well within its powers to run the UID project with an executive order. 

Elaborating on the significance of technology in service delivery process, he said the present system provides for high entry barriers and no exit (of beneficiaries). The barriers are used in a discretionary format to exclude people, he said. With technological intervention (through Aadhaar enabled system), he said, the entry barrier is reduced and it leads to higher exit as the government is able to catch hold of bogus beneficiaries through integration of databases.

He said that the information technology has provided India with an opportunity to again, "leapfrog" (to a better system of governance) and redesign the system of governance, as it has missed to capitalise on two industrial revolutions. They benefited from the first industrial revolution with the invention of steam engine and invention of power, which he termed as the second industrial revolution. These countries later provided better health, education and social security to its population.

The third industrial revolution is the use of wide-spread information technology, he said.

Referring to the downward movement in the cost of the technology and an upward movement in social security spending of governments, he said that India could use the tools of the third industrial revolution and build modern health care, deliver nutrition and education across geographies.