Nandan Nilekani, famed as one of the team of founder entrepreneurs from Infosys, retired as its CEO, only to go on and spearhead the making of the famous Aadhaar card.

Nilekani is clearly an incandescent man of transformational ideas that can be implemented, judged from his corporate career, the success of Aadhaar, involving over 900 million card holders, and this, the second of his visionary books.

The first, Imagining India, marked his advent into doing something for the country, and was expressive of his zeal. And this one, Rebooting India, is also full of practical and far reaching ideas. Nilekani truly should be in Parliament, though he lost his maiden lok Sabha election bid from Bengaluru, even if it is via the indirectly elected or nominated route to the Rajya Sabha.

While there have been many Government sponsored identity cards, rivalling each other, duplicating effort, and sometimes working at cross purposes, nothing has come close to the biometric Aadhaar card. It is the first one that may become and possibly remain the definitive identity device for Indians.

That it aspires to becoming the link pin for social security schemes, subsidies, Government services, e-KYC, the soon expected GST administration, electronic toll services, voter roll reviews, electioneering, fraud and embezzlement prevention, and even voting itself, alarms some who benefit from the present confusion. There is a potential to save the Government about `1,000,00 crores per annum or about 1 per cent of GDP if it is used extensively.And so, the universal use of the Aadhaar card is opposed by many vested interests including those who cite an invasion of privacy, and others who say illegal immigrants who manage to get hold of this card become thereby legitimised.

But still, the potential of this one-stop device to simplify identification, speed-up processes, and save money, is indeed immense.

Nilekani and Viral Shah, his young techie collaborator and co-author of Rebooting India, both worked together in the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), chaired by Nilekani. 

Given the authors’ backgrounds and achievements, the duo are eminently, qualified to suggest the acceleration of India’s development using information technology. And this, in a country and administration traditionally riddled with red tape and extreme bureaucracy.

This book is also something of an unabashed collaborative effort. Apart from its easy readability, despite the complex and intricate subject matter, assisted by senior journalist Samar Halarnkar; it is also remarkable for the meticulous research done by Swapnika Ramu. And then there are the profuse illustrations, with their easy to grasp graphics, by Aparna Ranjan. If one were to just follow all the illustrations and graphics, it would be possible to form a thumb-nail sketch of the contents of this primer of a book.

Many new and emerging technology devices are cited as the horses fit for courses: Micro ATMs, via a handheld wireless device, plus an Aadhaar card number and a thumb-print, for hey presto rural banking, for example.

There is a discussion on the burgeoning Ali Baba style e-commerce revolution, borne on the internet, backed by a warehousing or supplier inventory management programme, that can be used nowadays to purchase a plethora of goods and services. Items and services that come to the consumer, quickly, sometimes instantly, often at far more competitive prices than in brick and mortar facilities. And the process is minus the travel, the crowds, the queue; not to mention the consequences of real-estate costs and location costs/rents/utilities/salaries, and the unavoidable, resultant retail mark-ups.

India will become the world’s youngest country by 2020, with 64 per cent of its population, some 800 million people at present count, of working age. This huge mass of humanity will be consuming all manner of goods and services against a long list of demands. This, even as its ‘online footprint’ grows towards becoming amongst the biggest in the world. And also as per capita income levels rise.

Despite being even the fastest growing major economy in the world from a modest base of some $2 trillion presently, at a projected 9 per cent per annum in GDP, this extra money in the economy, by itself, is not going to be able to deliver every need for all. Especially if expensive, wasteful and tardy systems are not thrown over. India will need technological efficiencies and constant innovation to make its rupee stretch, given its massive population.

India is also likely, given the intelligence and dynamism of its youth, to become the Start Up Capital of the world. But this, only if the regulatory and financial environment encourages such entrepreneurship. In other words, it is likely to spontaneously stand up and meet its own demand opportunities given the chance.

But, the delay and complications imposed, by sometimes necessary and often outdated Government permissions, left over from another era, has to be overhauled and speeded up to cope.

The Modi Government is not only highly appreciative of the work done by UIDAI but is moving towards digital locker systems for important documents, direct transmission of subsidies, bank accounts for the people at the bottom of the pyramid, electronic payment of income tax, stamp duties, money transfers online, agricultural marketing systems, and other electronic governance processes, and this too, quite rapidly.

And then there are the reforms in the infamous sarkari benefits, misdirected and siphoned off by contractors and middle-men, over these long years, and with impunity.

Without a direct and transparent transmission plank between the giver, usually the Government, under its many welfare and poverty alleviation schemes, and the recipient, aka the impoverished, the situation cannot get better. And this is being both recognised and addressed, often using Aadhaar, even though the Supreme Court has refused to make it mandatory.

The broad idea in the medium term is for every Indian to have an Aadhaar card, a smartphone and a bank account.

Beyond the potential of the Aadhaar card, this simply written but brilliant book does short sketches of how vital areas of governance such as health, education, energy, the legal system, agriculture, can all be transformed, with the efficient use of IT. In the end, Rebooting India envisages a new governance paradigm shift, via access to a data grid that has every single Indian on it.