AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 10468 - Detection of bogus ration cards results in Rs 14,000-crore savings

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

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

10468 - Detection of bogus ration cards results in Rs 14,000-crore savings - Financial Express

Detection of bogus ration cards results in Rs 14,000-crore savings

All 24.3 crore ration cards in the country are now available on transparency portals of states/UTs, and 65% of them have already been seeded with Aadhaar

By: Sandip Das | New Delhi | Updated: September 20, 2016 7:04 AM

Moreover, 28 of the country’s 36 states/UTs have started online allocation of foodgrain while automation of supply chains has been completed in 18 (1.5 lakh of the country’s 5.3 lakh fair price shops are automated). (Reuters)

Over 2.33 crore ration cards have been weeded out since early 2013 as part of government efforts to identify the beneficiaries of the food security law. The reduced instances of ghost-lifting have resulted in annual savings of around Rs 14,000 crore to the exchequer.

Though millions of new ration cards have been issued in the same period and the law itself inflated the food subsidy bill, yet the last three years’ public distribution system (PDS) reform helped plug leakages and curbed the growth in subsidy outgo, officials said.

The reform started with digitisation of ration cards and their seeding with the unique identification number Aadhaar. All 24.3 crore ration cards in the country are now available on transparency portals of states/UTs, and 65% of them have already been seeded with Aadhaar.

As far as expunging of duplicate ration cards is concerned, close to 80% of this has been done in five states —West Bengal, Karnataka,Maharashtra, Telangana and Rajasthan (see chart). Besides, states such as Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu too, have removed significant number of such cards.

The officials added that states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Assam and Kerala have not shown much progress in removing duplicate ration cards from their systems. Food minister Ram Vilas Paswan has requested these states to expedite the reform, saying that transparency in the functioning of PDS is key to targeted implementation of the food security law.

Under the law, over 82 crore beneficiaries get 5 kg of foodgrain per month at heavily subsidised rates: Rs 3/kg for rice, Rs 2/kg for wheat and R1/kg for coarse grains.

“Andhra Pradesh is the first state in the country to automate all of its 29,027 fair price shops, followed by Madhya Pradesh (all 22,401 FPSs), Daman & Diu (all 51 FPSs), and Tamil Nadu (all 34,723 FPSs). Considerable progress has also been achieved in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan with 17,000 (99%), 11,965 (97%) and 24,649 (96%) automated FPSs, respectively. As a result, these states/UTs have been able to reduce ghost-lifting, achieve better targeting of food subsidies by authentication of eligible beneficiaries, improvement in service delivery, weeding out bad FPSs, etc.,” the ministry of consumer affairs said in a statement recently.

“With the innovative use of technology, significant progress has been reported by states/UTs on PDS reforms in the last two years. States must focus on the reduction of inclusion and exclusion errors and Aadhaar validation so that no eligible beneficiary is denied entitlement under the PDS scheme,” Paswan said.