The declaration was triggered by the political and economic repercussions on account of poor delivery on one side of the equation and rising costs of welfare programmes and subsidies on the other side. In March 2006, the government announced a grand plan, ‘Unique ID for BPL Families’, and tasked the Department of Information Technology in the Ministry of IT and Communications to get it implemented by the National Informatics Centre. The project was to be implemented within – hold your breath, drum rolls – twelve months.20
