Governtrepreneur
or Rohini Nilekani life seems to have come a full circle. Arghyam, her elegant house in suburban Bangalore has been turned into the unofficial headquarter of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Ever since her husband Nandan Nilekani gave up the co-chairman’s job at Infosys, the $4.6 billion (revenue, in 2008-09) company he co-founded with six colleagues in 1981, to take up a role in public service, there has been an endless stream of visitors at Arghyam. Although UIDAI’s official headquarter is in Delhi, the technical team is based in Bangalore. Nandan Nilekani splits his time between Delhi and Bangalore and just like in the early days of Infosys, where the founders often met at each others homes, lot of brainstorming on the project happens at the Nilekani household. “For 30 years Infosys consumed him and now it is UIDAI,” Rohini Nilekani says only half seriously.
The day we meet him at his house, Nandan and Rohini Nilekani have just returned from a workshop at the National Law School in Bangalore where he brainstormed with a group of legal experts on how to create the legal framework for the UIDAI. A week ago he was in Bihar where he had a 90-minute lunch meeting at chief minister Nitish Kumar’s house. The day after our meeting, Nilekani is flying off to Mumbai to meet the Maharashtra chief minister. In the last four months he has met 12 CMs to explain to them the intricacies of the UID project and ask for their support in enrolling people into the programme.
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Image: Mallikarjun Katkol for Forbes India
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The chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and co-founder of Infosys Technologies | |
In between meeting the CMs, Nilekani attends seminars and workshops like the one organised by the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies at Shimla where he met a bunch of sociologists, NGOs and political scientists to evangelise his UID project and to understand how it can be used to create inclusive models of development.
“This is my Bharat Darshan”, he says, “I had seen more of America than India before this”. That time he was selling Infosys to the Fortune 500 crowd, now he is selling the concept of a national identity programme to the grassroots politicians and bureaucrats. It is a far cry from the life he led just six months ago and yet it somehow seems he has been doing this for years. Even Rohini is surprised by how well he has transitioned into the new role.
EMOTIONAL PARTING
Leaving Infosys was not an easy decision. “As founders we had the understanding that if somebody had to leave it would be with the consent and approval of others. When you have been together for 30 years you just don’t walk off and leave,” says Nilekani. Initially, he says he felt an emotional void, and even today he has to remind himself not to use the pronoun “we” when describing Infosys. “I was very comfortable in my world. I was doing well and could have stayed on at Infosys till the age of 60. I didn’t have to do this” he says.
So then why did he? Part of the reason was that he was restless. “I thrive on challenges and new intellectual issues. I had to show that I could execute something outside my normal world. So there was that desire to prove myself again.” The other was the feeling that he needed to give something back to the country. “I come from that part of India which had a good run. I had the right education, went to IIT, and was here when liberalisation happened. I was fortunate to be an entrepreneur in that time, rose to the top of my company and benefited hugely in many ways,” he says. He felt it was now time to give back.
Although Rohini is well ensconced in the not-for-profit world, Nandan Nilekani didn’t want to go down the philanthropy route. “If you want to bring change on a large scale, which is material to many people you have to do it through the public space. There’s no other way to do it” he says.
Some of this became evident to him while researching his book, Imagining India, a 511 page tome on the big ideas that could transform India. The rest of it was gained through his experience of working with the government as on outsider. For 10 years, Nilekani had been operating on the fringes of public policy. He had served on various committees for S.M. Krishna, ex-chief minister of Karnataka, as well as been on the Prime Minister’s urban renewal mission and national skills mission. It was during this time that he was noticed by the PM which ultimately led to his latest appointment.
Building CONSENSUS
In roughly a year from now, the first UID number will be allotted. The plan is to cover about 200 million people in the first two years. In four years about 600 million numbers would have been issued. According to a UID report, the enrolment of each resident will cost between Rs. 20-25 which puts the total enrolment cost at Rs. 3,000 crore.
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