AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 8534 - Ten Facts That Set the Record Straight on Cash Transfers

In 2009, I became extremely concerned with the concept of Unique Identity for various reasons. Connected with many like minded highly educated people who were all concerned.

On 18th May 2010, I started this Blog to capture anything and everything I came across on the topic. This blog with its million hits is a testament to my concerns about loss of privacy and fear of the ID being misused and possible Criminal activities it could lead to.

In 2017 the Supreme Court of India gave its verdict after one of the longest hearings on any issue. I did my bit and appealed to the Supreme Court Judges too through an On Line Petition.

In 2019 the Aadhaar Legislation has been revised and passed by the two houses of the Parliament of India making it Legal. I am no Legal Eagle so my Opinion carries no weight except with people opposed to the very concept.

In 2019, this Blog now just captures on a Daily Basis list of Articles Published on anything to do with Aadhaar as obtained from Daily Google Searches and nothing more. Cannot burn the midnight candle any longer.

"In Matters of Conscience, the Law of Majority has no place"- Mahatma Gandhi

Ram Krishnaswamy

Sydney, Australia.

Aadhaar

The UIDAI has taken two successive governments in India and the entire world for a ride. It identifies nothing. It is not unique. The entire UID data has never been verified and audited. The UID cannot be used for governance, financial databases or anything. It’s use is the biggest threat to national security since independence. – Anupam Saraph 2018

When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi

“The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right.” Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi

“There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.”-A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order.

Legal scholar Usha Ramanathan describes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says.

Good idea gone bad
I have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and today’s technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha

“What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesn’t determine who is eligible and who isn’t,” Jairam Ramesh

But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP

“I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary,” Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017.

August 24, 2017: The nine-judge Constitution Bench rules that right to privacy is “intrinsic to life and liberty”and is inherently protected under the various fundamental freedoms enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World; indeed it's the only thing that ever has"

“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden

In the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Arora, one of the senior counsel in the case, compared it to living under a general, perpetual, nation-wide criminal warrant.

Had never thought of it that way, but living in the Aadhaar universe is like living in a prison. All of us are treated like criminals with barely any rights or recourse and gatekeepers have absolute power on you and your life.

Announcing the launch of the # BreakAadhaarChainscampaign, culminating with events in multiple cities on 12th Jan. This is the last opportunity to make your voice heard before the Supreme Court hearings start on 17th Jan 2018. In collaboration with @no2uidand@rozi_roti.

UIDAI's security seems to be founded on four time tested pillars of security idiocy

1) Denial

2) Issue fiats and point finger

3) Shoot messenger

4) Bury head in sand.

God Save India

Sunday, August 16, 2015

8534 - Ten Facts That Set the Record Straight on Cash Transfers - The Wire

Ten Facts That Set the Record Straight on Cash Transfers

BY SWATI NARAYAN ON 15/08/2015

The cash transfer debates are apparently back in vogue. But unfortunately cash is repeatedly pitched against subsidized foodgrains. Sarath Davala’s ‘Another Kind of Welfare’, for example, as a rebuttal to Rakshita Swamy’s ‘A State only in Name’ is riddled with unpalatable contrasts.

So here are 10 quickly digestible facts to set the record straight:

1. Almost half of rural homes purchase rice each month from ration shops

The number of families that depend on food rations has doubled in the seven years between 2004-5 and 2011-12. At last count, 46% of rural homes purchased rice and 34% wheat from fair price shops.

There has been an impressive revival of the PDS especially in the poorest states. Even before the enactment of the National Food Security Act in 2013, 67% of rural household in Chhattisgarh, 54% in Odisha and 45% in Bihar purchased subsidised rice from ration shops.

The presence of the public distribution system in the four Southern states is ubiquitous. There routinely more than 75% of rural households buy their rice from fair price shops.

Rural households that purchased foodgrains from

ration shops, 2011-12, %

Click on Link above to see full article

Source: National Sample Survey (2015), Public Distribution System and Other Sources of Household Consumption, 2011-12, Report 565

2. Leakages in the PDS have declined in seven years, especially in Bihar

Davala’s assertion that “the national average of pilferage in the PDS system is 48 per cent” is patently untrue. Economists Jean Drèze and Reetika Khera have calculated from the National Sample Survey (NSS) that PDS leakages fell from 54 to 42 per cent between 2004-05 and 2011-12. In Bihar, for example, leakages plummeted within two short years from 75% to 24%.

State-wise estimated leakages from the PDS, %

Click on Link above to read full article with graphs

Source: Drèze and Khera (2015), Understanding Leakages in the Public Distribution System, Economic and Political Weekly, L(7) based on NSSO 2004-5 and 2011-12

In the seven years, the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) reports an even greater decline from 49% to 32%.

All India estimated leakages from the PDS, %

Go to main article to see graphs

Source: Drèze and Khera (2015) Understanding Leakages in the Public Distribution System, Economic and Political Weekly, L(7)

3. Universal cash transfers could cost 8 per cent of India’s GDP

Back-of-the-envelope calculations show that Unconditional Basic Income (UBIs) to every Indian equivalent to the international poverty line could cost as much as 8 per cent of GDP.

SHOW 102550100 ENTRIES

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	Estimate	Assumption	Source
International Poverty Line (USD PPP)	1.25		World Bank
India's population (billions)	1.2		Census 2011
UBI (USD PPP; billions)	552	Every Indian receives USD PPP 1.25 for 365 days
India's GNI, 2014 (USD PPP; billions)	7302		World Development Indicators
UBI as a % of India's GNI	8

Showing 1 to 5 of 5 entries

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Of course as Davala contends cash transfers, “need not replace the existing welfare system altogether”. So it is utterly unfortunate that they are usually pitched against subsidised foodgrains. After all, subsidised foodgrains are not strictly comparable as they do not have universal coverage and currently cost the exchequer around 1 per cent of GDP.

While UBIs may become viable in future, miniature pilots also discount inherent fallacies of composition. Expanded to scale, for example, UBIs could trigger runaway inflation.

4. Large-scale cash experiments in Delhi and Puducherry have flopped

It is also important to acknowledge that while the small-scale SEWA study in Madhya Pradesh may have thrown up “quite positive” results, larger ‘live’ interventions have repeatedly failed.

Delhi’s 2012 Anna Shree Yojana launched with much fanfare for one-lakh families in lieu of foodgrains, for example, has been quietly wound up.

This summer, Puducherry too abandoned within two months the largest cash rollout for 3 lakh families. Cash doubled the workload and transaction costs of families – first to trudge to the bank and then to purchase foodgrains.

5. India has 5,00,000 ration shops compared to only 43,000 bank branches

Further bank branches are few and far between. Even Puducherry, despite being a highly urbanised union territory with excellent infrastructure, has more ration shops than bank branches – a reality across large parts of India.

Across India, half a million fair price shops exist in three of every four villages. In comparison, bank branches are present in only 8 per cent and post offices in a quarter of villages. Gujarat, for example, has 1 ration shop for every 3,500 people compared to 1 bank branch for only every 25,000 population.

No. of ration shops v. bank branches per 10,000

population

A	Ration Shops	Bank Branches
Uttarakhand	8.60	0.64
Orissa	6.85	0.44
Himachal Pradesh	6.42	1.07
Punjab	5.18	0.62
Andhra Pradesh	5.15	0.41
Maharashtra	4.50	0.27
Tamil Nadu	4.47	0.38
Jammu & Kashmir	4.38	0.51
Jharkhand	4.37	0.33
Bihar	4.28	0.31
Kerala	4.27	0.44
Chhattisgarh	4.07	0.32
Puducherry	4.00	0.33
Haryana	3.69	0.49
Uttar Pradesh	3.66	0.33
Karnataka	3.35	0.48
Rajasthan	3.33	0.33
Madhya Pradesh	2.85	0.28
Gujarat	2.76	0.36
West Bengal	2.22	0.30

Sources: Ration Shops: GOI (2011), State-wise Number of Fair Price Shops (As on 30.06.2011), Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Press Information Bureau. Bank Branches: Reserve Bank of India (2014), Basic Statistical Returns of Scheduled Commercial Banks in India – Volume 43, Table No 1.2

6. The poorest families often get excluded from cash transfers

Any switch from existing subsidies to cash must indeed be implemented as Davala emphasizes, “without hurting any of the stakeholders”. But the 2011 Kotkasim Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) kerosene experiment revealed that poor families who cannot navigate complicated cash systems invariably get left out.

Their ouster is then heroically projected as cost savings such as the purported `12,000 crore drop in LPG subsidies. But exclusion errors, hidden costs and negative externalities often go under-reported.

7. The international experience of cash transfers is mixed, but the Indian government considers them “Nirvana”

The international experience of cash transfers is distinctly mixed. Across the border alone, for example, Bangladesh’s targeted primary education scholarship unlike its superior female secondary education stipend is whittled by corruption. Similarly Nepal’s universal old age pension is leagues ahead of India’s targeted one.

So, Davala’s dismissal of all skeptics as “ideologically disinclined” is a disservice. On the other hand, the Indian government has repeatedly positioned DBTs as “game changing”? The Indian Economic Survey dedicates an entire chapter touching titled, ‘Wiping every tear from every eye: the JAM (Jan-Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile) Number Trinity Solution’, which equates cash transfers to no less than “Nirvana”. Recently even the Finance Minister extolled its virtues.

9. The rich rarely #GiveItUp, especially cash

But is it possible in the first place to identify who is poor before dishing out cash?

The Prime Minister’s #GiveItUp campaign to induce the rich to voluntarily relinquish their LPG subsidy speaks volumes of this inherent flaw (and even that hasn’t worked – only 0.35% LPG users enrolled to give up their subsidy).

Aadhaar may be an integral part of the larger JAM trinity, but the Supreme Court has now also unequivocally ruled against Aadhaar numbers being made compulsory for any government service.

10. The Food Act has been illegally postponed thrice

The National Food Security Act promises, two of every three Indians 5 kilos of subsidised foodgrain every month.

Nevertheless, the government seems intent on eating into the food subsidy of the poor to dole out cash. The NDA government since it assumed power has illegally postponed the law thrice.

When will Indians be able to spread poet Pablo Neruda’s ‘The Great Tablecloth’ and ‘sit down to eat, with all those who haven’t eaten’? Or will we have to keep chewing on cash?

Featured image credit: shankaronline/Flickr, CC BY 2.0.