Former CEC faces identity crisis

CHENNAI: Across the country, his is a name that conjures up an image of a strict officer, but to the Income Tax department, former Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalswami remains an applicant unable to prove his identity to change his address in a PAN card. The 1966-batch IAS officer — whose name is N Gopalaswami in his Voter ID card and Needamangalam Goplalaswami in his passport — says he is unable to get his address changed in his PAN card, as officials concerned say his two identity proofs don’t carry the same name.“I had recently applied for a change of address in my PAN card, but the authorities concerned have been refusing to accept it, as one proof of address mentions my initial N, while the other has its expanded version of Needamangalam. I am yet to convince the officials that they all belong to me though both documents include my photograph,” said Gopalswami, who on Monday inaugurated Vigilance Awareness Week 2011 at Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited.A victim of poor standarisation practices in the country himself, the former CEC called for these problems to be addressed with the Aadhar cards. “Owing to poor standardisation in documents, our names are being mentioned differently in different places. The problem is especially pronounced with women, whose surname changes with marriage.“Their ID proofs prior to marriage are not consistent with the ones with their husband’s surname, causing identity proof problems. These issues will have to be sorted out with the introduction of the Aadhar Cards, which should mention both — a woman’s husband’s name and father’s name — to make all other IDs valid,” he said. He was planning on sending a written recommendation to officials concerned about the same soon, he added.Speaking on this year’s theme for the Vigilance Week-Participative Vigilance, he asked for Section 4 of the Right to Information Act — pertaining to proactive disclosure — to be taken more seriously by government departments. “By voluntarily disclosing information, credibility can be earned,” he said, calling it an important step in participative vigilance as such disclosure will also help departments correct their mistakes. “An iota of implementation is bigger than a thousand legislations. Certainty of punishment will be a greater deterrent for committing crimes than severity of punishment,” he said, admonishing that the Lokpal too would become one such a statute only in the law book, if it weren’t being implemented well.