Column

Microview

"Hi! I have recently changed homes, and I want the bank to make this change in its records," I told the person at the bank counter. "No problem, sir," said the polite guy. He dished out a form, I filled it in, and it was all over. The change would be reflected in my account statements within a week. I was thrilled. I blessed everyone at the bank for the simplicity of their rules.

But that was the last of the good news. I have not been able to make any other change in anything else that matters - at least, not yet. The bank's demat department wants proof that I cannot provide.

The mobile services company refuses to accept a company lease agreement as primary proof of residence despite the fact that the lease actually mentions my name as tenant. My online brokerage will accept bank statements with address as proof, but not if the bank belongs to the same group. My cablewallah says he needs address proof or a PAN card to give me my set-top box. So does the gaswallah. As for changing addresses on passports, driving licences, telephone bills, etc, forget it.

And I haven't even told you the worst. All the problems mentioned above relate to my own accounts. I am, at the least, the guy who is leasing the flat. My wife cannot make any change in anything whatsoever since she does not have primary proof of residence in her name.

I presume she will have go around proving she is married to me and not living anywhere else. My 18-plus college-going kid cannot own a mobile in her own name, and new bank accounts need primary proof of residence - which she doesn't have.

The problem - and I am sure thousands of citizens face the same issue over and over again - is that the regulatory agencies prescribe all kinds of verification requirements for everything - house, car, bank accounts, mobile services, driving licence, cable services, et al. But government has not instituted a basic process that everybody would be entitled to -something like a citizen ID card that anyone can apply for which can be certified by employees of the state.

If you want to buy a house, you need address proof. That would mean having a telephone or electricity bill in your name, or a ration card, or passport or driving licence. But to get any of these things, you need an address proof.

Ultimately, it boils down to getting the address you are living in acknowledged by the authorities as your bona fide address. I wonder why the government does not have a mechanism for ensuring this instead of prescribing all kinds of documentation that can only get done by hook or by crook.

If you can get a ration card, bank statement or telephone bill with any kind of address on it, everything else can follow smoothly. The ration card is, in fact, the easiest thing to mess around with since the system is corrupt through and through. Friends confirm that many of the Bangladeshi cooks they employ own ration cards.

The poor know what needs to be done, and they get it done even if it costs them some. It's only the squeamish middle class which has problems taking the bribery route to obtain ration cards they don't need.

It is time the government decided on creating a national ID card with its own primary verification process that is both foolproof and pain-staking. And I am not saying this merely because I have run into a stone wall trying to prove who I am.

From probing terror links to preventing illegal migration - not to speak of mundane things like opening bank accounts - everything can be dealt with better with such an ID system. Any country that wants to reduce income inequalities has to go about identifying who the poor are, and who needs state help.

At some point, we are supposed to giving cash doles to the really poor, education vouchers to the deserving, and subsidised healthcare for the underprivileged. A national ID system will allow us to check whether government largesse really reaches the poor.

There is only one reason why a universal citizen ID system won't get done: our political class rakes in too much money from making things difficult for people. Need a ration card? Pay up. Driving licence? Pay up. If things become really universal and simple, who'll pay them speed money?

Email: r_jagannathan@dnaindia.net