THE MAKING OF AADHAAR: World’s Largest Identity Platform by Ram Sewak Sharma

“I left the Irrigation department and went on to join as District Magistrate (DM) of Begusarai in Bihar in January 1985. To the east of Patna lies the district and the eponymous town of Begusarai, earlier a part of the Monghyr district. The region, endowed with several rivers, has an agrarian economy. However, it was more famous for its refinery, fertilizer factory, and Barauni, a place in Begusarai district known as the ‘Moscow of Bihar’ for being a stronghold of the Communist Party of India (CPI). Begusarai was also known as a difficult police district due to its high crime rate. Here, I found myself in the company of my friend and classmate from IIT Kanpur, Arvind Verma, who was posted as Superintendent of Police (SP). As I had a fascination for electronic gadgets, I purchased an electronic typewriter and a computer when I reached there. The electronic typewriter would produce neat and evenly aligned letters and documents. There was no need for the whitener anymore, as the typewriter had a memory store, where one could correct any mistakes and reprint the letter. I was also the first officer in the government to purchase a computer. It was a DCM-Tandy machine that had no hard drive but used big floppy disks for storage.

It had a royal 64KB of memory and used an operating system called CP/ M. Arvind and I discussed the potential use of this gadget. I studied the computer manually and learned the programming language. It was called dBase, which was an interpreted programming language and database rolled into one. I started to write code and the first application was a listing of lost-and-found firearms with which we hoped to match firearms and connect them with criminal incidents to solve cases. Matching Lost-and-Found Firearms: Gun ownership entails the risk of firearms being looted or stolen and then used for settling a dispute. Looting of firearms during a dacoity and their subsequent recovery were routine in the crime statistics of our state. There was, and continues till today, a system of record-keeping of these events of loss and recovery of firearms. The standard operating procedure (SOP) was that when a firearm was lost or looted in any incident, its type, make and serial number would be flashed by the police through the wireless system to all the districts of the state.

When any firearms were recovered, whether involved in an incident or not, their details were also shared with all the districts. Such exchange of information was, of course, in the hope that the districts would check if any of these arms belonged to their jurisdiction and whether they could be restored to their rightful owners or also help in solving crimes that involved the use of a gun. Details of these lost-and-found firearms, when flashed, were duly recorded into a register. That is where the information rested because firearms have long alphanumeric serial numbers that are difficult to match manually. Arvind and I thought if we entered the contents of this register in a computer database and indexed it on firearm type with the serial number, the matching ones would be listed together. When we did just this, lo and behold, there were as many as 22 matching pairs found! This meant that we had solved 22 cases where the firearms could be returned to their rightful owners and a link between two crimes that featured the same firearm could be established, thus providing vital clues to investigators. The police headquarters at Patna could scarcely believe the story until we presented the details to them. It became quite news at that time in police circles. Summons for Trial: The trial for a crime must be conducted in the presence of the accused. That’s the law. Also, any witnesses to the crime must be brought to the court for recording evidence. There was a system in place to maintain a General Register, or GR in short, in which the next date of hearing of each trial was listed, with the names of the accused and the witnesses to be produced during that trial. This list was maintained for each court. However, to be effective, what was needed in addition to the trial date was the list of persons for each thana (police station), whose presence the officer-in-charge had to ensure at the courts. By computerizing the records, it was easy to produce the second list from the first. The officer-in-charge now simply had to submit a report to the SP, making him accountable for compliance with the list given to him. The summons could no longer be scuttled that easily! ‘Dead’ Teachers Transferred: There were thousands of primary and middle-school teachers employed in the district, about whom there were no systematic records.

There were teachers who were staying at the same place for a decade or even more and dabbling in politics rather than performing their assigned work. Although posted close to their homes, they would often skip school entirely. With some effort, it was possible to put all the available information into a database and code the rules of transfer into a computer program. The orders that the computer program generated created a flutter in the community. Many were happy, but those with vested interests were critical too, which we fully expected. However, our records were not clean enough. Therefore, the computerized orders that were issued included the names of some dead teachers too. While commenting on the story, newspaper headlines noted: ‘Dead teachers transferred by the computer!’ Logistics for Assembly Elections, 1985 Elections are a massive exercise in logistics in the world’s largest democracy. One of the requirements of holding elections is the large number of vehicles (trucks, buses, and jeeps) for transporting men and materials to the polling booths, as also for patrolling to maintain law and order. As state governments do not have so many vehicles at their disposal, the law provides for the district administration to requisition private vehicles for this work. The requisitioned vehicles are used during the election period and later paid for usage on fair terms. However, owners were reluctant to provide their vehicles for election duty, as it disrupted their normal business. Further, they did not receive the compensation in time, which led to complaints of bribery and corruption. Payments were delayed because the vehicles went to different destinations and clerks took time to compute the compensation due to the owners. It would take months, sometimes years even to clear the bills, often selectively and in installments. To avoid this situation, owners would often keep their vehicles out of service at a loss themselves. Begusarai district too requisitioned private vehicles and often seized them on the road. As National Highway 31 (NH 31) passed through the district, we were also expected to help the less fortunately located districts with a surplus catch! We had an Assembly election in 1985.

As we could not do without seizing the vehicles, we decided to solve the payment problem. For this, we sought support from the Barauni refinery of the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) which helped to process payments to the vehicle owners using their own computer resources. We provided them with details about the requisition vehicles such as the registration number, the vehicle type, the duration of detention, and the applicable rates. Their computers printed out slips with amounts to be paid to each owner, thus cutting out months of manual processing that had frustrated everyone on previous occasions. That year, we were able to pay the dues almost immediately, often along with the release of the vehicles. The vehicle owners were delighted and promised to voluntarily bring out their vehicles for the next elections in Begusarai! Documenting these initiatives, Arvind and I published a booklet titled, Computers in District Administration, where we described applications that could be developed to improve the systems at the district level.

When I recently stumbled upon a copy, it was interesting to note that the booklet contained ideas that went on to become the central themes and subjects of e-governance later. When we shared some of this work at the Collectors’ Conference or at other meetings with colleagues, the usual question, however, was not about the work that was done, but the Rules under which we had purchased the computer! In May 1986, I was shifted as DM of Purnea in Bihar.

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