The necessity of National UID(Addhar)(?)

I was going through the UID documentation and was not able to find any strong reason as to go for a new numbering system considering that the already exisiting IT PAN(Permananet Account Number) could have done the same job comfortably.

In fact the Finance Ministry had decided to add biometric data to the PAN data base to plug leakages in terms of bogus cards.The PAN is already being used by crores of people.This number could as well have been used by other govt departments for delivering some other set of services.

The UID Authority will be paying Rs 50 for every new enrollment to the registrars.This money could have been saved for a few crore people,if PAN was used.

I am sure they would have done a feasibility study considering that Nilekani is heading the project.But,the govt(quasi govt) agencies more often that not have embarked on some redundant projects to shelve it later.The MAPIN project comes to mind.This was mandated for all mutual fund holders.Whereas PAN could have been used for the same.At the last moment MAPIN was scrapped and PAN was used in its place.The Voter ID card is one other redundant project.The mutual fund KYC(Know your Costomer) is another bogus policy being implemented.People can easily be tracket using PAN.

Nilekani is the Cenral government advisor for IT projects.Hope this will help prevent further redundant e-gov projects in the future.