13012 - Aadhaar ruling won't help: Drèze - TELEGRAPH INDIA

Aadhaar ruling won't help: Drèze

Our Special Correspondent Mar 15, 2018 00:00 IST17

Ranchi: Activists in Jharkhand, which saw at least five hunger deaths last year allegedly after ration cards of victims were cancelled since these weren't linked to Aadhaar numbers, maintain that the Supreme Court's decision to indefinitely extend the deadline for such linkage to bank accounts, mobile phones, insurance accounts and other services till its final verdict, would not help the marginalised sections of society.

They said the reprieve should have been be extended to welfare schemes too. Jean Drèze, a renowned economist and MNREGA activist, said the apex court order would benefit the middle and upper classes more, but not the scores of marginalised people of the hinterlands who were dependent on government welfare.

"They will continue to remain vulnerable," he said. "I haven't read the SC order in detail yet. But what I gather from newspapers is that people who are dependent on PDS, NREGA, social security pensions and other welfare schemes, where UID has already been made mandatory by governments, will continue to face problems," he added.

Later, Right to Food Campaign, a nationwide network of activists working for social causes, of which Drèze is a key member, said in a statement that Aadhaar in its current form was unable to address mass glitches on the ground.

"In Jharkhand, 25 lakh families were deprived of their grain entitlements on a monthly basis. Even in areas like Ranchi where the integration had been in place for over a year, the rate of non-transacting households was high. The damage caused by Aadhaar is not limited to the PDS. 

Recipients of social security payments, such as NREGA workers, social security pensioners and scholarship holders, are also suffering... People's pensions have been stopped because their Aadhaar numbers are not seeded, or cannot be seeded. Such denials are a violation of the right to life and must be penalized," read the statement.

Balram, who is the state's adviser to Supreme Court-appointed committee on Right to Food, said he would have preferred if the apex court had put everything that was directly or indirectly related to Aadhaar on hold till a final verdict was out.

"Yesterday's (Tuesday's order to me doesn't make any sense as it won't solve any problems. The government will continue to route welfare schemes through Aadhaar when we still don't have a proper system to address glitches on a real time basis. In its current form, Aadhaar can be an option, but making it mandatory is causing widespread damage," he opined.

According to sources in Jharkhand's UID office, 98 per cent of the state's population (3.25 crore) had Aadhaar numbers.