Part III: MBA Student's Research Financial Access At Birth

The following is written by Brent Peterson MBA 2011 for his Applied Management Research Project:

December 15, 2010
Today started out poorly but redeemed itself in the end. Lena missed another flight when the airline screwed up and got stuck in New Jersey. Our driver was late so we only had time to go speak with Arvind. Professor Chowdry warned us about not getting too stressed about packing a lot into each day because there would be delays. We didn’t have to deal with it too much yet until today. After our meeting we went to an enrollment site in a rural area. We waited around for the guy to lead us to the site and then ended up driving with a guy from another agency that was bidding on doing enrollments in another region. The government itself doesn’t run the enrollment stations. Instead, they put the contract out to bid for third parties, and the winner gets the right to enroll people in the region. The agency is paid on a per-person basis once their data is uploaded to the central government database and validated. This method seems to be a critical factor behind the speed at which UIDAI is ramping up operations.
The last site visit was my favorite thing so far. It was really interesting to talk to our new guide about what the agencies took into account when they made their bids. I think the going rate was about 25-35 rupees per head in these areas. That’s about 55-75 cents per head. They get 50 enrollments per day, so they would only be making roughly $20 per day in revenue per station. It was the first time that we got fresh air in India, which in itself made the place beautiful. We filmed a little bit more of the process. Some of our best pictures were taken in this area. The rollout itself was very chaotic. There was no clear order to the steps in the process and people piled up against the gate trying to get their application started. They had several stations, but very few of them were being utilized at any given time. After filming a little bit, Jack and I went out and played volleyball with some local kids. After we drove back, we went to Domino’s for a much needed break from Indian cuisine. Crossing the street was another near-death experience. It was like a high-stakes game of Frogger.