An Update On India
Just last week, I wrote an entry about how Biometrics is being used to help a certain geographic region within the province of Maharashtra get access to certain services. Well, today, I want to update that story with another one which is happening in another region of India, many miles to the northeast, in a province known as “Bihar”, which is sandwiched between Nepal and Bangladesh.
Here are the details: “NXP Semiconductors N.V. is working with Glodyne Technoserve, the technology service provider of the Indian State Government of Bihar, to provide citizens living in rural communities with access to banking and social welfare facilities for the first time. Ultimately, residents of Bihar can use the SmartMX-based e-Shakti card as their identity card, employment card, and bank card . . . The e-Shakti transformation project aims to improve the purchasing power of Bihar's large rural population, to stimulate the rural economy and to further develop the Bihar region. Using an end-to-end solution based on cutting edge technologies such as NFC, government officials can register participants as they arrive at work and pay wages directly into their newly created bank accounts — bringing banking to the unbanked . . . Using secure handheld terminals, bank clerks can quickly set up virtual banks in even the most rural areas, providing access to full banking services and eliminating the cost and effort required to set up physical branches.” (SOURCE: http://www.findbiometrics.com/industry-news/i/9381/).
My Take
So as you can see, this Biometrics project deals with what is known as setting up a virtual bank to those citizens of India who otherwise, being able to access a bank account with money in it would be a total dream come true. But apart from accessing financial transactions, the idea of this project is to also stimulate social welfare and activity (such as increasing the buying power) on a much more grander scale. Also, as you can further see, this project is pretty similar to its counterpart to the southwest. From a technological standpoint, there is really nothing mysterious about using Biometrics for large groups of people. But to me, it holds a very special significance.
As you many of you know, my origins are that of Indian. I have visited this country many times previously, and while it has prospered in certain regions over time (especially the Mumbai and Bangalore regions), India is still a country with tons of areas of which are still very poor. And believe me, I have seen these first had. Especially at the train stations. Whenever I have travelled by the trains, there would be tons of poor people clamoring around my passenger car for just a bite of bread. It was totally gut wrenching, and broke my heart. Another example of this is in some of the posh hotels in India, especially in Mumbai. Here, I would see top business executives come out, and just 50 feet away from them, would be a very poor person just begging for five cents to have. Truly a very stark, and sickening contrast to me. But, now I am glad to see these programs start to abound in India.
It’s about time these people who live in the most desolate of villages have access to the same services as the affluent and middle class can afford. I always wondered when this would happen, and at least now it is starting to. I just hope things like this build up more momentum. But, this story can also be viewed from a different angle as well. Here in the United States and in Europe, we are constantly worried about the debt of Italy and Greece, and are witnessing first hand rock our very own financial markets. Just to even get a basic stimulus package within these countries is taking much time and wrangling (maybe even worse there, than it is here in the US). And now, look at a country like India.
Believe me, this place has problems with debt and a sinking economy as well, but rather than simply pumping in money, the Indian Government is using Biometrics to give the poorest of the poor there a chance-to increase their purchasing power by being able to buy certain goods and services. And when you have a large mass of people buying goods and services, the economy in those regions will most likely spur, will it not??? I mean in democratic societies, isn’t consumer spending something like 2/3 of economic growth.
So perhaps here in the United States, we can take this example and give the poorest of the poor a chance to stimulate the economy by using Biometrics and give them access to goods and services they would not have had access to before. The irony here would be, perhaps the millions of dollars which would be spent in awarding these types and kinds of contracts to the Biometrics Vendors would have much further reaching implications than the trillions of dollars being spent on stimulus packages, which so far, have proved absolutely worthless to our economy.
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