13723 - One more chance to link BPL ration cards with Aadhaar - TNN

One more chance to link BPL ration cards with Aadhaar

TNN | Jun 20, 2018, 07:25 IST

BENGALURU: The government will give BPL card holders one more chance to link their ration cards with Aadhaar for obtaining their monthly quota under the public distribution system. 

After a meeting with department officials on Tuesday, food and civil supplies minister BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan said many poor people in the state were unable to link ration cards with Aadhaar due to various reasons. In Mysuru, many families could not get adequate ration for all members as some of them failed to link their Aadhaar number. 

“Karnataka is leading in the Aadhaar-linking process with over 90% target already achieved. There are some technical issues in linking the remaining cards. We want all the members to link his/her Aadhaar card with the family’s ration card. Otherwise, they will miss out on the full quota of monthly foodgrain supply,” an official said. 

The minister has directed the officials not to deny ration to those who could not link Aadhaar. 

More rice under Anna Bhagya?

Zameer Ahmed Khan said the government is planning to increase the monthly quota of rice from 5kg to 7kg per individual under the Anna Bhagya scheme. 

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Zammer Bhai, pl distribute good quality of rice and also distribute wheat/dals/refined oil and other necessary items which in use for daily activities

NKM 123

He said the food and civil supplies department is purchasing ragi to be distributed among BPL card holders in Mysuru at Rs 25.42 per kg from the open market while it is available for Rs 19 per kg. “I’ve directed officials to stop buying ragi at exorbitant prices,” he added.

12121 - Rs 15,000 for girl child born in BPL family - TNN

Rs 15,000 for girl child born in BPL family

Abhay Singh | TNN | Sep 23, 2017, 11:30 IST

PATNA: The state government would provide Rs 15,000 as financial assistance in three instalments for every girl born in a family of the below poverty line (BPL) category or having an annual income up to Rs60,000 to protect and promote her future, state social welfare department principal secretary Atul Prasad said on Friday. 

The first instalment would be paid on the birth of the girl child in the categorized family, the second when she attains the age of 14 years and finally when she reaches the age of 19 years. "The aim is to discourage child marriage and inspire the girl concerned to pursue her career, like taking admission for further studies, after she reaches the age of 19," Prasad said.

Chief minister Nitish Kumar is to formally launch the anti-dowry and anti-child marriage campaign in the state from October 2, which would also mark the culmination of the centenary celebration of Mahatma Gandhi's Champaran 'satyagrah' being organized by the state government in sync with his vision.

Addressing a presser in the presence of the department's minister Kumari Manju Verma and other senior officials, Prasad said it would be one of the seven umbrella schemes in which all the 32 centrally sponsored schemes under implementation in the state are being regrouped for effective monitoring. The new scheme for the girl child has been formed by integrating Mukhya Mantri Kanya Vivah Yojana, Mukhya Mantri Kanya Suraksha Yojana and Mukhya Mantri Nari Shakti Yojana.

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Bring investment in the state and give priority to education and health then social evil will vanish on its own.

Mithilesh Kumar

Stating that the social welfare department with Rs7,500 crore budgetary allotment for 2017-18 has been doing social security work on an enormous scale, the principal secretary said of the total 62 lakh social security pensioners (like for the old age, extreme old age above 80 years and physically challenged persons), 60 lakh were personal account holders and 56.55 lakh of them had been uploaded under public finance management scheme data pool.

Further, out of the total, 46 lakh beneficiaries had been linked with Aadhaar numbers to facilitate money transfer under direct benefit transfer (DBT) mode. He said the beneficiaries were given Rs 2,834.98 crore during 2016-17 and Rs854.14 crore has been disbursed during the current fiscal so far. 

10657 - Disruption in ration distribution system hits BPL families in P’kula - Tribune India

Posted at: Nov 30, 2016, 2:09 AM; last updated: Nov 30, 2016, 2:09 AM (IST)

Disruption in ration distribution system hits BPL families in P’kula

Ishrat S Banwait

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, November 29

Ration card holders and BPL families in Panchkula are unable to procure ration as the e-public distribution system through the newly launched point of sale machines is not working properly. A private company Vision Tech has been given the charge of this system, which seems to be incapable of handling the load.

Over 4, 40,000 such families live in Panchkula and there are 154 fair price shops in the district. Each shop is visited by over 200 people on a daily basis. Aadhaar numbers were linked with ration cards to bring in transparency and ensure fair distribution. They are required to show their Aadhaar card and an entry is made in the machine that produces a form-cum-receipt.  With the server being down, these forms are not generated and people are not able to procure ration.

District Food and Supplies Officer Megha Kanwar said, “The problem is that the lone server crashes repeatedly   overloaded as 145 such machines are in operation in Panchkula district alone and 9,000 in Haryana.” She added that there are 25 lakh such families in the state and a permanent solution has to be found for their convenience.

A fair price shop owner in Kalka said, “The problem started after the first 2- 3 days. The machines rarely work. The public is fighting with us and the ration is piling up. The engineer comes and fixes the machine but it crashes again and we are told that the server is down at the head office.”

The system was inaugurated by CM Manohar Lal Khattar on November 1. tt was previously run as a pilot project and then implemented across the state. Experts say  earlier glitches were not taken care of and the company that was given the project is technically weak.   

10412 - Just a month's time left to link Aadhaar with BPL cards - Indian Express

Just a month's time left to link Aadhaar with BPL cards

By Express News Service

Published: 11th September 2016 05:33 AM

BENGALURU: Below Poverty Line (BPL) card holders in the cities who have not submitted their Aadhaar number to the Food and Civil Supplies Department might risk the cancellation of their cards.

Food and Civil Supplies Minister U T Khader said that consumers have time till the end of the month to link their Aadhaar number to the BPL cards. “About 72 per cent of the people have already linked their Aadhaar numbers. If the rest do not do so by the end of this month, we will cancel their cards as they will be considered bogus,” he said on Saturday.

The Minister also said that the coupon system being adopted at present for disbursal of items under PDS had seen several improvements and from next month, card holders would receive coupons which would be valid for three months.  However, distribution of coupons in rural areas has seen problems due to erratic power supply and internet connectivity issues.

“Since this has proved to be a problem, we are introducing coupons on mobile phones. We are giving ten mobiles to each district. Consumers can use their biometrics to take their coupons from these mobiles, which will be available at selected places,” he said.

Applicants in rural areas can submit their forms for BPL cards online. “The Panchayat Development Officer will verify the application in three days. Once approved, the card will be dispatched in a week’s time. Applicants will have to pay `70 for the card,” Khader said.

He also said that the online application facility in the cities will take some time to be introduced. A decision is likely to be taken after another round of talks.

10411 - Linking BPL ration card with Aadhaar made mandatory - The Hindu

BENGALURU, September 11, 2016

Linking BPL ration card with Aadhaar made mandatory

Linking below the poverty line (BPL) ration cards with Aadhaar has been made mandatory for obtaining monthly rations under the public distribution system in urban areas of the State. All BPL card holders have been told to link their cards with Aadhaar by September-end.

Food and Civil Supplies Minister U.T. Khader told press persons on Saturday that cards that have not been linked with Aadhaar would be treated as bogus ration cards.

So far, only 72 per cent of the BPL families have linked their cards with Aadhaar. In rural areas, families can submit online applications seeking BPL cards from this month-end. After document verification by panchayat development officers, ration cards would be issued in a week, he said.

In rural areas, he said, BPL cards would be delivered through India Post. A sum of Rs. 70 would be collected from the beneficiaries for the delivery of cards, the Minister said.

To avoid inconvenience caused to ration card holders, Mr. Khader said three months’ coupons would be given in one go. Owing to power cuts and snags in computers, there has been delay in the distribution of coupons in rural areas.

9693 - Hi-tech route to cut subsidy but long road ahead - Business Standard

Hi-tech route to cut subsidy but long road ahead

Digitisation of supply chain for BPL beneficiaries can save Rs 1,080 crore a year but much needs to be done to plug leakages

B Dasarath Reddy  |  Hyderabad 

March 26, 2016 Last Updated at 00:20 IST

A beneficiary provides her fingerprint for biometric verification at a fair price shop in the Krishna district

In this state of information technology professionals, now even a village woman knows how the malfunctioning server in Hyderabad can affect the delivery of subsidised foodgrain to her.

Technical snags can make the queues longer at fair price shops in Andhra Pradesh, even a year after the government pushed for digitisation of the services.

Beneficiaries often find themselves waiting or are asked to return the next day, if the point of sale (POS) device in their neighbourhood fair price shop finds it difficult to access the central server at the Aadhaar database.

In the financial year 2013-14, or FY14, the data of below poverty line (BPL) households were digitised and linked to the Aadhar database. The purpose was to eliminate bogus beneficiaries - who had given a bad reputation to the popular subsidised rice distribution programme of undivided Andhra Pradesh.

From March 2015, in a number of phases, the Biometrically Authenticated Physical Uptake (BAPU) mode was introduced in the public distribution system (PDS) of the state.

Under this model, beneficiaries get themselves identified by scanning their thumbprint or iris on a POS machine while buying a subsidised product such as kerosene or, in this case, rice.
A number of teething problems, too, afflict the BAPU mode in Andhra Pradesh.

Tech boost

As the seeding of BPL cards with Aadhar data eliminated double entries (a family having multiple cards or the same individual getting different cards) just before the bifurcation, the Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu-led government of Andhra Pradesh has quickly rolled out the end-to-end automation of the supply chain of PDS to plug leakage at other levels.

Now, foodgrain can be tracked extensively - right from when it is loaded into trucks at the Food Corporation of India warehouses to the fair price shops. The system also tracks the delivery to the BPL beneficiaries, ensuring that the weight of the product being supplied is accurate.

If a truck carrying PDS goods stops anywhere for more than five minutes, officials concerned will get a message through the global positioning system (GPS) tracker, said Karikal Valaven, the principal secretary of the state, who also holds the additional charge of commissioner, civil supplies department.

Automatic text alerts are sent to the cardholders as soon as the foodgrain stock lands at the fair price shop.

While presenting the Budget for the next financial year (2016-17) on February 29, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced the automation of 300,000 of the total 535,000 fair price shops in the country over the year. The model draws heavily from the system in Andhra Pradesh - which has demonstrated the possibility of a big saving in the subsidy bill.

At the ground level

The automation was first tried out in the Krishna district, about 280 km southeast of Hyderabad, the currently common capital of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. It was then replicated all over the state.

District Collector Babu Ahmed had spearheaded the digitisation of the PDS in Krishna. He has done a cost benefit analysis, besides measuring the savings that have accrued from the reduced off-take of rice and other items each month.

The district administration, claims Ahmed, was able to save Rs 56.13 crore in the 10 months starting May 2015. Between March and May, all 2,162 fair price shops in the district were linked to the new system.

"We were able to save Rs 8.5 crore in the first month of automation, which translates into a 180-per cent return on the Rs 7-crore investment we made on the equipment and processes," Ahmed told Business Standard.

He added the rice bill in the Krishna district was down by 15 per cent.

"There were irregularities in the past. But we are cooperating with the officials in implementation of the ePoS system now," said V Niraja, the owner of a fair price shop at the Chittinagar area in Vijayawada.

Dealers have to complete the distribution of rice and other commodities within the first 10 days of a month. The online records of Niraja's shop showed a closing balance of 14.5 quintals of rice of 127 quintals allotted for March. So, there was an 11-per cent saving on account.

Until a year ago, there was no proper mechanism to keep track of the unsold stocks. This was believed to be the biggest source of corruption.

Now, the residual stock cannot be the dealers, who used to assume fictitious names to do so in the past.

However, there seem to be other types of leakages that go unnoticed right under the nose of the new system. Many BPL beneficiaries claim their quota of rice for Rs 1 a kg, but sell it to middlemen for Rs 10 a kg.

Thanks to automation, the closing stock makes up for the savings in the subsidy bill.

But, it is not all hunky-dory.

People claim that new corrupt practices are taking root. Shopkeepers can put weights in packets of rice and evade detection. They also use pre-packaged rice bags to generate bills, but later use manual weighing machines to deliver the goods to the beneficiaries.

Dealers have a few complaints of their own. They claim that the commission they get at present is not enough to run their shops.

Simple savings math

A look at the monthly cost benefit of about 30,000 fair price shops across the 13 districts of the state will tell us how much Andhra Pradesh can save in its subsidy bill.

The digitised system generates data of real-time stock positions in each shop. According to the data available, about 2,951 tonnes of rice was saved in April last year - just a month after the Krishna district stated rolling out the automation.

The figure rose to 5,582.43 tonnes in May, when the entire district had been covered.

In October, the amount of rice saved had jumped to 20,575 tonnes. And, in February this year, it peaked to 29,593 tonnes.

"Of the fixed monthly requirement of 221,000 tonnes of rice, we were able to save 30,000 tonnes in February. If this remains constant the total saving a year would be over 13 per cent of the total rice subsidy," an official of the civil supplies department told Business Standard.

Based on the closing balance of stocks, the civil supplies department calculated a savings of Rs 100.42 crore for the state and Rs 370.21 crore for the Centre in the 11 months starting April last year.

If the quantum of the savings in February can be maintained, the combined savings of the state and the Centre would be about Rs 90 crore a month, and a whopping Rs 1,080 crore for the year. The Centre and the state together spend Rs 30,000 on every tonne of rice, including the cost of storage and transportation.

More can be done

The savings could be even bigger if the state followed the Union government's footsteps to determine the percentage of poor people in the total population, as was calculated for the implementation of the National Food Security Act, claim analysts.

When Y S Rajasekhara Reddy was the chief minister (2004-2009), the number of BPL cards in the state touched 22.9 million - more than the total number of households in Andhra Pradesh.

After the bifurcation, the number of cards in the truncated Andhra Pradesh was 13.7 million, or 67.15 per cent of the total number of cards in the combined state.

This number came down to 12.9 million after 800,000 cards were deleted from the list during the Aadhar seeding in 2013-14 and then rose beyond the level of pre-Aadhar period to 14 million as the new government issued 1.14 million fresh BPL cards in January this year.

This number remains unchanged except the removal of about 400,000 individuals from the existing list very recently. Each individual is entitled to 5 kg of rice a month.

Now, about 43 million of the 49.38 million people in the state (according to Census 2011) - about 87 per cent - are covered by the 14 million BPL cards.

Based on the perception that 60 per cent of the rural and 40 per cent of the urban population deserve to be covered under the National Food Security Act, the Centre has taken the responsibility of providing subsidised rice to 26.8 million people (54 per cent of the state's population) in Andhra Pradesh. It will bear the cost of 144,000 tonnes of rice at the rate of Rs 23,600 per tonne per month. The Andhra Pradesh government is adding Rs 6,400 per tonne - and providing rice at Rs 1 per kg to BPL families.

The cost of supplying subsidised rice to the remaining people in the BPL list is being borne by the state government.

For the full year, the total subsidy bill on rice alone works out to about Rs 7,956 crore. The Centre's contribution to it is Rs 4,078 crore; the balance Rs 3,878 crore comes from the state exchequer.

The volume of rice being pumped into the PDS over and above the Centre's quota costs Rs 2,772 crore to the state government.

Asked why the administration has not broadened its ongoing drive to give subsidised rice or BPL cards to genuinely deserving families, a senior officer said that it was a political call.

Even after the hi-tech boost, the road to full and just delivery remains a long one.

WELFARE BILL A year after the Andhra Pradesh government pushed for digitisation of the public distribution system, the disbursal of subsidised rations is far from smooth: 14 million Total number of BPL cards 43 million People covered 2.65 million tonnes Total rice allocation per year Rs 7,690 crore Total annual subsidy bill for rice (at the rate of Rs 29,000 per tonne) Note: Approximately another Rs 700 crore subsidy is required on sugar, wheat and kerosene

8026 - Biometric system in fair price shops in Maha soon: Bapat - Busines Standard

Biometric system in fair price shops in Maha soon: Bapat

Press Trust of India  |  Kolhapur  May 23, 2015 Last Updated at 00:22 IST

Maharashtra government will soon implement the Aadhaar card-linked biometric system in fair price shops to curb black marketing, a state minister said today.

"We are strictly against black marketing and outflow of food grain and kerosene. Maharashtra government is spending Rs 11,000 crore on distributing food grains and kerosene to below poverty line (BPL) people," state Food and Civil Supplies Minister Girish Bapat said in a press conference.

However, food grain and kerosene worth approximately Rs 2,500-3,000 crore do not reach the beneficiaries and vanish from the market, he said.

Therefore, to cut out the fraud, the government will introduce of Aadhaar card linked biometric procedure in fare price shops as well," he added.

Bapat arrived in Kolhapur to attend the BJP executive meeting scheduled tomorrow.

7865 - Planning commission order

http://e-pao.net/GP.asp?src=17..290315.mar15

Planning commission order

Source: Hueiyen News Service

Imphal, March 28 2015 : State Government has submitted all the requisite documents indicating the number of BPL enrolled under NPR.

According a notification issued by Joint Secretary Planning, Government of Manipur Dr Th Munindro Singh, the total number of BPL population enrolled in the state as on July 11 last is 99,181 out of 1,162,513 population of BME under NPR and the following documents which have already furnished to UIDAI are also enclosed.

These documents include UC indicating number of BPL enrolled with claim proposal planning department's letter of even number dated on October 15 last.

Finance department's letter number 6/18/2010'FC dated 9/10/2014 for submission of UC indicating number of BPL enrolled.

And Planning Department's letter dated 10/11/2014 for submission of minutes of the State Level Committee for Implementation of UDI/Aadhaar indicating approved BPL population enrolled and Aadhaar number generated.

He further appealed the Ministry of Finance, Government of India to release subsequent tranches of 13th Finance Commission grant at earliest.

7809 - Gujarat govt initiates process to link Aadhaar identification with all govt schemes

Gujarat govt initiates process to link Aadhaar identification with all govt schemes

 April 17, 2015  DeshGujarat

Ahmedabad
Gujarat Government has initiated process of providing Aadhaar‐enabled Citizen Centric Services. For this it has initiated a major process of linking State Resident Data Hub under the Uniqe Identification Authority of India(UIDAI)’s Aadhaar data with all the government data. Details of all the Government scheme beneficiaries will be linked with the Aadhaar card number of citizens.


Residents details will be derived from the Aadhaar enrolment data and to facilitate easy incorporation of Aadhaar Authentication Services into various state applications.


Government will cross-verify all it’s data of Election card, PDS (Ration Card), BPL, Land Records, Property Registration, eMamta (Mother & Child Tracking System), Education Department, Employment Exchange, Housing, Health Department, Social Justice & Empowerment Department etc.,


A detailed feasibility report for all the Government of Gujarat databases has been initiated. Based on the feasibility study best possible strategy for Aadhaar Seeding will be decided. On the basis of that physical, web and mobile based citizen services will be developed.


Government has proposed Business Process Re‐engineering at various stages of service delivery like application by Citizen, Sanction/Approval by Department for the identified schemes and disbursement of Benefits.


– DeshGujarat

7741 - People Urged to Apply for Food Security Cards before April 15 - Express News Service

People Urged to Apply for Food Security Cards before April 15

By Express News Service

Published: 08th April 2015 06:01 AM

HYDERABAD: Below Poverty Line (BPL) families, who have not yet applied for food security cards till now, should apply for new cards immediately, as April 15 has been fixed as the last date for submitting new applications.

“This is the final opportunity for all those who have not been included in the food security database yet and missed out. Eligible families should apply giving all the details of the family members, like name, gender, relationship with head of the family and Aadhaar card number. Along with application, xerox copies of Aadhaar cards, LPG status details like consumer number and agency address, mobile number and bank account details have to be submitted,” said Hyderabad chief rationing officer Bharati Hollikeri on Tuesday.

For information or clarifications public can call toll free number 040-27817887.

Applications for food security cards can be submitted at circle offices or at chief rationing office located opposite Anand Theatre in Secunderabad.

7204 - Gas agencies can't force customers to link Aadhaar number - TNN

Gas agencies can't force customers to link Aadhaar number

Manu Aiyappa, TNN | Jan 12, 2015, 07.49PM IST

BENGALURU: Vindya S (name changed), a homemaker from Hebbal, was perplexed when she received a message from gas agency that her LPG connection will be suspended in 15 days if she fails to link Aadhaar number with the bank account. She had applied for Aadhaar card recently and wanted some more time. But, her efforts to convince the staff at the gas agency did not yield any result. Vindya's is not a lone case; many customers are facing this harassment and dilemma.

Consumers are being stalked by gas agencies reportedly at the instance of oil companies to bring all their customers under the Aadhaar-based Direct Benefit Transfer for LPG (DBTL). This is despite the Supreme Court order in March 2014, directing the Centre to immediately withdraw all notifications making Aadhaar cards mandatory for availing benefits under social security schemes.

"Gas agencies cannot hold their customers at gun point to get Aadhaar and bank account linked especially in the wake of the Supreme Court order. They should do it without intimidating and setting deadlines. I will hold a meeting with all the stakeholders to put an end to such harassment,'' food and civil supplies minister Dinesh R Gundu Rao told reporters on Monday.

The minister said after January 15, he will invite oil companies, representatives of gas agencies and banks for talks and ask them to abide by the apex court order on the issue.

Bengaluru district is among the 34 cities that have been included under the scheme.

Dinesh said the government has decided not to force anyone to link Aaadhar number with ration cards considering that many have still not got their Aadhaar cards.

"As of now, only 40% of 1.3-crore BPL families have got their Aadhaar number linked to ration cards. The Centre is planning to take forward the Aadhaar scheme by setting up counters in every nook and corner of the country. This will ensure more people have Aadhaar cards. Till such time we have decided to go slow,'' he added.

He, however, said linking of Aadhaar number with LPG connection and ration cards will eventually become mandatory to avail subsidy.

4705 - Aadhar & other affiliated cards create confusion & colossal waste of money-Altgaze

http://www.altgaze.com/?p=1045

Aadhar & other affiliated cards create confusion & colossal waste of money, writes KAVITA CHOPRA

Sep 24, 2013No Commentsby Kavita_Chopra

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance’s (PSCF’s) outburst some time ago on duplication of efforts and wasteful expenditure on provision of identity cards of all sorts to the public might open a can of worms.

PSCF has barely scraped the surface of identity cards scam in its report recommending scrapping of The National Identification Authority of India (NIAI) Bill, 2010. The Committee was perhaps not given all the old records that could have led to recommend categorically scrapping of the much-hyped Aadhar/Unique Identification Number (UID). Alternatively, it could have recommended its merger with the one from which it was aped.  

While recommending reconsideration of unique identification (UID) scheme, PSCF has only implicitly mooted merger of UID/aadhar scheme of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) into National Population Register (NPR). (http://164.100.47.134/lsscommittee/Finance/42%20Report.pdf)

NPR is the gateway for issue of Multi-Purpose National Identity Cards (MNICs) to citizens by Office of Registrar General India (ORGI), a statutory authority under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). It would also be the different coloured cards to residents who are not Indian citizens.   

There is nothing unique about UID. Even the word ‘unique’ is borrowed from the original concept of Rs 10,000-crore Multi-Purpose National Identity Cards (MNICs) project of the Ministry of Home Affairs. (http://censusindia.gov.in/Vital_Statistics/MNIC/MNIC.html)

The objectives for which UIDAI was created in 2009 were already built-in the MNIC project.  Had the UIDAI been set up with formal inter-ministerial consultations leading to preparation of Cabinet Note, one Ministry or the other would have questioned the logic of creating UIDAI which had so far spent Rs 672.91 crore out of its approved outlay of  Rs.3170.32 crore for phase I and II to be implemented over five years. It has reportedly sought approval for phase III with a budget of Rs 14,000 crore!!

It is still not too late to wind up or merge Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which is sought to be empowered through the NIAI legislation.

MNIC, which provides a “unique national identification number (NIN)” to citizens, was mooted as a medium for provision of services such as issue of driving licences and entitlements under social welfare schemes. MNICs were conceived as an eventual replacement for the voters identity card/Elector’s photo identify card (EPIC) issued by the Election Commission.

Ideally, EPICs should have been upgraded from conventional physical format to smart cards, which are capable of providing different applications depending on the memory of the chip and the related software.

MNIC project should thus have implemented under Election Commission, which has had the largest database of population. What was needed was weeding out of illegal migrants while upgrading database with biometric information about each voter and prospective voters (14-18 age group).

Had it done that, the Government would have saved thousands of crores of rupees on efforts to issue multiple smart cards that include fishermen’s smart cards in coastal areas issued under MHA’s aegis, ration smart cards issued by States under the public distribution system (PDS), Kisan cards issued by public sector banks and health insurance smart cards issued to below the poverty line (BPL) families under the Union Labour Ministry’s Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY).

If one adds the final, roughly estimated project costs of MNIC, UID and voters identity card, it would easily amount to 40,000 crore, excluding the recurring expenditure on updates and upkeep.

Had the Government decided to have only national identity card to be issued by EC, it would have easily saved Rs 20,000 crore with which it could have opened 20,000 new primary health centres in villages. This is purely a guesstimate as presumptive losses are always very difficult to assess.

According to a proposal mooted several years back by two experts of National Informatics Centre, a multi-purpose smart card named  NISANI (National Identification Scheme As Numbers Individually) which could have replaced the 20 types of popular cards like citizenship, succession, ATM cum debit, electoral role, blood group, PAN, religion, caste, date of birth, date of death, education, eye donor, disability, driving license, gender, own home, domicile, Identity, death & birth registration. (http://mirzapur.nic.in/nisani/abstNISANI.pdf)

According to presentation made by ORGI in 2006, MNIC would have two variants, the India basic card (IBC) and the India premium card (IPC).

IBC, which would be offered free to citizens, would contain certain basic personal information. It would have memory slots reserved for additional information such as caste/tribe status.

IPC would have all the features of IBC and would have larger memory to loading data for provision of services such as e-purse as desired by card-holder.

If MNIC cannot be used as one card for all services, it can certainly be used for single card for exercising franchise, certifying citizenship and for E-payment of entitlements available under different schemes.

Had the Government not goofed up and had the MNICs not been delayed for several years, subsidy leakages running into several thousand crore of rupees would have been avoided.

More importantly, the hapless Aam Aadami would not have wasted time and effort in submitting same numerical and biometric information time and again to different agencies. No value is, however, ever attached to time foregone by citizens due to bad governance in the country.

Had PSCF been given access to all official documents on all identity cards, it would have in all probability proposed merger of UID, NIN and EPIC into a single national identity card, thereby breathing life into the concept of one country, one citizen, one card. (http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/sim09/Speakers/Tanmoy_Chakraborty.pdf)

One can cite more information available in the public domain to prove the goof-ups on multiple, statutory identities, resulting wastage of thousands of crores of public money. It remains to be seen whether the Government would muster courage to ask the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) to calculate both the real and presumptive losses underlying the plethora of identity cards planned/doled out by different government entities.

When ORGI was bracing to roll out MNIC pilot project through a consortium of three public enterprises, ITI, BEL and ECIL, in 2006, the seeds of UID were being conceived in the Department of Information Technology (DIT). By the way, none of the three public enterprises come under DIT’s turf.

DIT sought administrative approval for the project –”Unique ID for Below Poverty Line (BPL) families” in March 2006. Later this proposal was developed further by a committee headed by a senior official of the Planning Commission. The Committee plugged for setting up of UIDAI through an executive order under the aegis of the Planning Commission. (http://uidai.gov.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=141&Itemid=164)

Later, the Committee’s proposal was referred to an empowered group of ministers to consider, among other things, collating UIDAI with MNIC project. Instead of disapproving UIDAI, EGOM approved setting up of UIDAI in 2008. Thus was born UIDAI in January 2009 without Cabinet approval and without any legal sanctity which is now to be acquired through PSCF-trashed NIAI Bill.

The great mess over national identity cards has happened in spite of administrative reforms and transparency vigorously pursued by the UPA Government.

4684 - Editorial: Identity crisis - The Financial Express

Editorial: Identity crisis

The Financial Express | Updated: Sep 25 2013, 02:43 IST

Govt needs to explain to SC why Aadhaar is critical

It is not just Nandan Nilekani’s dream project that is in trouble, nor is it just the government’s crucial election plank—aapka paisa, aapke haath—that is in danger of coming undone with the Supreme Court’s interim order saying that Aadhaar numbers are not mandatory for availing of government schemes. 

Indeed, this has always been the government’s official position, that even if people don’t have Aadhaar numbers, they will not be denied government benefits like subsidies. But this was only because less than half the country has Aadhaar numbers—once they have them, it remained unsaid, their use would have to become mandatory. Indeed, that was the very rationale for the scheme in the first place. 

In LPG, which is the smallest of the schemes run by the government in terms of the number of people it affects, about 2 crore of the 14 crore customers registered with the 3 oil PSUs that sell LPG are believed to be fake. If the use of Aadhaar cards is not made mandatory at some point in time, how are these fake customers to be weeded out? The problem gets bigger as we move on to the larger schemes such as PDS or now, the Food Security Act. In many states, the number of BPL ration card holders is greater than the total population. Which is why NSS data shows that only a small fraction of the poor actually benefit from the PDS. So whether the government uses Aadhaar to make cash payments to beneficiary bank accounts or whether it continues to give them subsidised foodgrain, the only way it can ensure only the deserving get the subsidised grain is through the use of Aadhaar cards—a poor person comes to a ration shop for her grain, the shopkeeper takes her fingerprint on a phone, sends it to the Aadhaar gateway for verification and, 5 seconds later, gets an SMS saying the person is or is not whom she says she is.

This is what the government needs to explain to the Supreme Court. If it spends over R3 lakh crore on subsidies alone each year, and even a conservative 30% of this leaks, use of Aadhaar means a saving of R90,000 crore a year. The government also needs to explain to the court that once proof of citizenship is required for issuing Aadhaar numbers, the whole process will slow down dramatically. 

Over 43 crore Aadhaar numbers have been issued so far and the process has been fine-tuned to deliver at an even faster pace now that third-party vendor relationships have been set in place and stabilised. Once citizenship proof is required, it will go back to being a government-driven programme, with all the lethargy usually associated with government projects. Indeed, government lawyers need to point out that there is, in any case, a separate citizenship card based on biometrics that is proceeding on a parallel track.

4456 - From the granary to the plate - The Hindu

Published: August 1, 2013 

From the granary to the plate

Jean Drèze

Despite its many flaws, the food security bill is an opportunity to end the leakages from the PDS and prevent wastage of public resources

The National Food Security Bill, now an ordinance, has been a target of sustained attacks in the business media in recent weeks. There is nothing wrong, of course, in being critical of the bill, or even opposed to it. Indeed, the bill has many flaws. What is a little troubling, however, is the shrill and ill-informed nature of many of these attacks. Statistical hocus-pocus has been deployed with abandon to produce wildly exaggerated “estimates” of the financial costs of the bill, and no expression seems to be too strong to disparage it. The fact that the food bill could bring some relief in the lives of millions of people who live in conditions of terrifying insecurity seems to count for very little.

Findings

Meanwhile, recent studies shed some useful light on the state of India’s Public Distribution System (PDS) — one of the controversial foundations of the bill. As far as the “below poverty line” (BPL) quota is concerned, there is a clear trend of steady improvement in many States, including some that had a very poor PDS not so long ago. A recent study of the PDS in Koraput, one of Odisha’s poorest districts, found that almost all BPL households were receiving their full monthly quota of 25 kg of rice at the stipulated price. Similar findings emerged from a survey of the PDS in two districts of Uttar Pradesh (Lakhimpur Kheri and Chitrakoot), where most BPL households were getting their due — 35 kg of rice or wheat per month. The main problem was the restrictive nature of the BPL list, which left many households excluded. These surveys confirm earlier findings of a study by the Indian Institute of Technology in 2011 that BPL households in nine sample States received 84 per cent of their PDS entitlements.

It is in the “above poverty line” (APL) quota that embezzlement continues in many States. In Uttar Pradesh (U.P.), APL households are supposed to get 10 kg of wheat per month, but most of the APL quota goes straight to the black market. The gravy flows all the way to the top: the complicity of the then Food Minister, Raja Bhaiya, in this scam was exposed last year by Tehelka, but the “bhaiya” retained his post. Recent investigations suggest that leakages in the APL quota are also very high in Bihar, Jharkhand, and Madhya Pradesh, among other prime offenders.

The main reason for this vulnerability is that the APL quota is treated as a dumping ground for excess foodgrain stocks. In recent years, foodgrain procurement has increased by leaps and bounds, but distribution under the BPL and Antyodaya quotas has remained much the same, since allocations are fixed and lifting is close to 100 per cent. To moderate the accumulation of excess stocks, the Central government has been pushing larger and larger amounts of foodgrain into the APL quota, which is now almost as large as the BPL quota (close to 20 million tonnes of foodgrains in 2012-13). One consequence of this dumping is that the entitlements of APL households are, by nature, unclear and unstable; in fact, they are not entitlements but ad hoc handouts. This gives middlemen a field day, since APL households are often confused as to what they are supposed to get, or whether and when their quota has arrived. The current situation in U.P., where most of the APL quota goes straight to the black market without anyone raising the alarm, is just an extreme example of this situation.

Rectifies PDS defects

The food bill is an opportunity to clean up this mess, and to cure two basic defects of the PDS: large exclusion errors, and the leaky nature of the APL quota. In effect, the bill abolishes the APL quota and gives common entitlements to a majority of the population: 75 per cent in rural areas and 50 per cent in urban areas. These are national coverage ratios, to be adjusted State-wise so that the coverage is higher in the poorer States. In this new framework, people’s entitlements will be much clearer, and there will be greater pressure on the system to work. Indeed, wide coverage and clear entitlements are two pillars of the fairly effective PDS reforms that have been carried out in many States in recent years (other aspects of these reforms include de-privatisation of ration shops, computerisation of records and transparency measures). Seen in this light, the bill can be a good move not only for food security, but also from the point of view of ending a massive waste of public resources under the APL quota.

Cash transfers

The main goal of the PDS is to bring some security in people’s lives, starting with protection from hunger but going well beyond that. A well-functioning PDS liberates people from the constant fear that it might be difficult to make ends meet if crop fails, or if someone falls ill, or if there is no work. The value of this arrangement has been well demonstrated in many States — Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Rajasthan, among others. Whether a system of cash transfers could serve the same purpose at lower cost, and how long it would take to put in place, are issues that need further scrutiny and debate. Meanwhile, the PDS is in place, there is a ration shop in every village, and huge food stocks keep piling up. It seems sensible to use these resources without delay. In any case, the food bill does not preclude a cautious transition to cash transfers if and when they prove more effective than the PDS.

Three problems

Having said this, there are many reasons for concern over the impact of the bill. Three related problems look increasingly serious. First, there is a danger of over-centralisation of the PDS under the bill, at a time when many State governments are making good progress with reforming the PDS on their own. To illustrate, the bill seeks to impose a system of “per-capita entitlements” (e.g. 5 kg of foodgrains per person per month) across the country, as opposed to household entitlements (e.g. 25 kg per household). Per capita entitlements are certainly more equitable and logical than household entitlements. But the transition from the latter to the former is not a simple matter, and could be very disruptive if it is imposed overnight from the top. Just think about how an old widow in Rajasthan, who lives alone and survives on her monthly quota of 25 kg of PDS rice, would feel on being told that her entitlement is being slashed to 5 kg per month.

Political tool

The second danger is excessive haste. As the country gears up for a string of elections, the Central government — and some State governments — are keen to fast track the roll-out of the bill for electoral purposes. A sense of urgency is certainly appropriate as far as food security is concerned, but undue haste could be very counterproductive. For instance, some State governments apparently propose to use the BPL Census of 2002 to identify eligible households, instead of the more recent and reliable Socio-Economic and Caste Census — just to speed things up. This is a disastrous idea. A better way of fast tracking the roll-out of the bill would be to universalise the PDS in the country’s poorest districts or blocks.

Last but not least, the promulgation of an ordinance has turned the bill into a political football. The Congress claims that the bill is a non-partisan initiative, but is also trying to use it as an electoral card. The Bharatiya Janata Party says in the same breath that it supports the bill and that it will not allow Parliament to function. The Samajwadi Party is shedding crocodile tears for farmers, but is unable to explain why the bill is “anti-farmer.” The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam claims that the bill is against Tamil Nadu’s interests, without mentioning that it will enable the Tamil Nadu government to save large amounts of money on rice purchases from the Centre. The real issues are getting lost in these squabbles.

It remains to be seen whether the monsoon session of Parliament will provide an opportunity to repair this damage, and also to consider the much-needed amendments to the bill. The silver lining is that food security has finally become a lively focus of democratic politics in India. Whatever happens to the bill, State governments are under great pressure to reform their PDS and make it work for people rather than for corrupt middlemen and their political masters. This was long overdue.

(Jean Drèze is visiting professor at the Department of Economics, University of Allahabad.)

3163 - Aadhaar Yojana: PMC fails to log BPL candidates

Aadhaar Yojana: PMC fails to log BPL candidates

Student's RTI query reveals civic body hasn't spent a single rupee from Rs 10 lakh given by state for those people falling under this category; amount was given two years ago

March 22, 2013

PUNE

Priyankka Deshpande

In a startling reply to a Right To Information (RTI) query filed by city student Ganesh Borhade, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) officials replied that funds worth Rs 10 lakh, sanctioned by the state for the welfare of Aadhaar card bearers falling in the Below Poverty Line (BPL) category, are lying unused. 

Borhade recently received the reply to the query he had filed on February 26.

The reply also revealed that executives at UID centres had failed to note details of applicants falling in the BPL category. The state had passed a government resolution (GR) two years ago, stating that citizens falling in the BPL category would be eligible for getting a sum of Rs 100 after furnishing their UID cards. 

Plain negligence

“I was shocked to read that efforts were not taken to check whether the person coming to register for Aadhaar card belongs to the BPL category or not,” said Borhade.

He said in the GR it was clearly mentioned that it would be the sole responsibility of the district collector or the municipal commissioner to ensure that BPL citizens would be entitled for a sum of Rs 100 after furnishing their UID cards.

“I had asked for names and address of all such citizens. But civic authorities appeared clueless about whom they were supposed to pay the sum assured by the government,” Borhade said.

When contacted, Aadhar Yojana in-charge for PMC Mangesh Joshi accepted that the funds had remained unutilised for the last two years.

“We don’t know how to utilise it. Not only the PMC, but municipal corporations in other cities too are unaware about the usage of the money they have received from the state for distribution among BPL citizens,” Joshi said.

When asked for exact number of citizens falling under the BPL category within Pune Municipal Corporation’s jurisdiction, Joshi said he would not be able to give specific details.

“Last month, we asked the state to send us guidelines for using the fund,” Joshi said.

2472 - Below the sarkari line - The Asian Age

Below the sarkari line

              Antara Dev Sen

Stop being so middle class. Remember how kind our sarkar is. For ever changing to suit your needs, for ever trying to make you feel better.

Stop complaining about rising prices. So what if food inflation is close to 10 per cent? You’re still stinkin’ rich. The sarkar has decided that if you spend Rs. 32 a day, you are not poor. (It dips to `26 a day for rural folk.) And considering you spend way, way more than that, you are utterly untouched by poverty. Whew! Isn’t that great news? Relax. Enjoy your new status as Mr and Mrs Moneybags, stop fretting over the price of pulses and rice and onions. That’s so low class! The point of being rich is that you don’t think about prices. Life is priceless. Just focus on getting ahead at any cost.

So get into the mode, sister. Stop being so middle class. Remember how kind our sarkar is. For ever changing to suit your needs, forever trying to make you feel better. Dignity is so important in life, don’t you think?
Reminds me of a Bengali poem, Daaridra-rekha (Poverty Line) by the late Tarapada Ray. It goes:

I was merely poor, very poor.
I had no food to eat
No clothes to hide my shame
No roof over my head.
You, the very soul of benevolence,
You came to me and said:
“No, ‘poor’ is an ugly word,
It robs people of human dignity,
No, you’re actually poverty-stricken.”

Stricken by relentless poverty,
My days of suffering,
My days of pain,
Ran on day after day,
I wasted away.
Suddenly, you appeared again, and said:
“Look, I’ve been thinking about it,
‘Poverty-stricken’ isn’t a good word either;
You’re impoverished.”

My days and nights in chronic impoverishment,
Panting in the furnace of summer,
Shivering in the chill of winter nights,
Soaking in the monsoon rain
I became more and more impoverished.
But you are tireless,
You came to me again, and said:
“Impoverishment makes no sense.
Why must you be impoverished?
You have always been deprived,
You’re deprived, historically deprived.”

There was no end to my deprivation,
To bed half-fed year after year,
To bed in the street, under the naked sky,
I had a skeletal existence.
But you did not forget me,
This time, your clenched fist raised high,
You called out:
“Awake, arise, ye dispossessed!”

By then, I had not the strength to rise,
Hunger had almost finished me,
My rib cage rose and fell like bellows,
I could not keep up with
Your enthusiasm and excitement.

See, that’s the problem. We can’t keep up with the enthusiasm and excitement of our brilliant sarkar. Why, even many of us freshly discovered stinkin’ rich, instead of being delighted at our new status, have been attacking the sarkar, demanding to know what possessed it to keep the poverty line so ridiculously low. Was it to minimise the number of the poor? Was to it deprive the poor of government benefits? Was it to look more presentable in general?

This is not a measure of poverty, we snapped, it’s a measure of desperate destitution. What can you get for `32 a day? Certainly not good health. Not nutrition. Not proper clothes. Not a roof over your head. Not education. Not regular access to transport. Not old age security. Not healthcare. And certainly not the joy of living. What is the point of this absurd exercise in limiting poverty to absolute deprivation of the naked and the half-dead?

“If Rs. 25 for rural areas and Rs. 32 for urban areas per capita expenditure was ‘adequate’, then it is not clear to us why Planning Commission members are paid up to 115 times the amount (not counting the perks of free housing and health care and numerous other benefits),” fumed social activists, including some members of Sonia Gandhi’s National Advisory Council, like Aruna Roy. And several distinguished economists and social scientists, including Ashok Mitra, Prabhat Patnaik and Yoginder K. Alagh, urged the government to delink food entitlements from such a curious poverty line. Undernutrition is more widespread than income poverty anyway, they said, and linking such faulty official poverty estimates to basic entitlements of the people, particularly entitlement to food, is counterproductive.

Besides, why should there be a poverty line that determines “caps” on the below poverty line population? Access to food is a basic entitlement. Why link it to a silly imaginary line that measures deathly destitution, not adequate nutrition and basic standards of living?

Come on! Aren’t we being unfair? Give the sarkar its due. It’s trying so hard to establish us as a world power. To get us the dignity we deserve. Shouldn’t we help? Forget the old roti, kapda and makaan logic. Things change. We can’t be trapped in a time warp for ever. We should recognise the importance of being a rich country — as we now are — and allow the sarkar to reduce poverty in any way it can. Lowering the threshold of prosperity magnificently improves our looks as a rich nation, buzzing with billionaires and a vibrant first world economy. Focusing on the abysmally poor doesn’t. Anyway, we still have 450 million people living below this crawling poverty line. And you want more, mister?

Besides, how has a more inclusive poverty line helped? The poor still spend far more than `32 a day merely to get a BPL card that gives them access, after deducting middlemens’ cuts, to welfare schemes. We must move with the times.

“Long days have passed in the meantime,
You are now wiser,
And smarter.
This time, you have brought a blackboard with you,
On it, with great care, and with some chalk,
You have drawn a perfectly straight line;
This time you’ve had to work hard,
You wipe the sweat from your brow and tell me:
“See this line? Below it,

Way below it, is where you are.”
Wonderful!
Thank you, thank you so much!
Thank you for my poorness,
Thank you for my poverty,
Thank you for my impoverishment,
Thank you for my deprivation,
Thank you for my dispossession,
And finally, thank you for that long and perfect line,
Thank you for this bright and shining gift.”

The writer is editor of The Little Magazine. She can be contacted at:
sen@littlemag.com

2471 - Which world do economists live in? - The Asian Age

Which world do economists live in?

Sep 23, 2011

On September 20, the Montek Singh Ahluwalia-led Planning Commission filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court stating that anyone capable of spending more than Rs. 965 a month (Rs 32 per day) in urban India and Rs. 781 (Rs 26 per day) in rural India is not poor and, therefore, will not be allowed to benefit from Central and state government schemes meant for people living below the poverty line. Many may have forgotten that the aforementioned “generous” estimates were arrived at by the Planning Commission after it faced criticism from the Supreme Court for claiming in May this year that a person is not poor if s/he earns more than Rs. 20 a day in urban areas and Rs. 15 a day in villages.

“The Planning Commission may revise the norms of per capita amount looking to the price index of May 2011 or any other subsequent dates,” the court had firmly suggested.
The apathy of the government and its so-called compassionate economists towards finding a humanistic social policy to improve the lot of the “capability deprived” (to use an Amartya Sen phrase) majority of this country is indeed shocking.
The enormity of this institutional neglect, apparent in the plan panel’s latest estimates, needs to be looked at from the perspective of the August 2007 report on the “Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in the Unorganised Sector” released by the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS).
According to this report, in 2004-05, 77 per cent of our population, i.e. totalling 836 million, was subsisting on an income of less that Rs. 20 per capita per day, and is therefore, poor.
But the Planning Commission, uncomfortable with the truth, seeks not to remedy the situation but use anachronistic methodology and derive from it more comfortable figures that will drop the poverty line and make the “77 per cent of Indians are poor” fact go away.
According to the official definition, the poverty line is the monthly cost of a “basket of food” that gives 2,400 calories of nutrition per capita per day in rural areas and 2,100 calories per capita per day in urban areas.
In 1973-74, the government fixed this line at Rs. 49.09 and Rs. 56.64 per capita per month for rural and urban areas respectively. These values were revised in 1999-2000 to Rs. 327.56 and Rs. 452.11 per month. In other words, we were made to believe at that time that a person who earns Rs. 328 per month in a village and Rs. 453 per month in a city is not poor.
Astonishingly, these outdated figures still form the basis of poverty calculations in India. The Planning Commission, in March 2007, used these figures to claim that the number of people living below the poverty line had declined to 21.8 per cent from 26.1 per cent in 1999-2000. The NCEUS report contradicted this contention in August the same year
with its 77 per cent report card.

The common international poverty line has in the past been roughly $1 a day. In 2008, the World Bank released revised figure of $1.25 at 2005 purchasing-power parity (PPP). To avoid such conflicting claims the poverty line must be redefined for a realistic evaluation of the number of poor in India.
In this connection, the methodology used by Australia may be worth studying as it takes into account even non-income indicators to calculate poverty. For instance, “for a family comprising two adults, one of whom is working, and two dependent children” the Australian poverty line for the March quarter 2011, inclusive of housing costs, was $835.3 per week (or $3,341 per month). This was an increase of $27.72 over the poverty line for the previous quarter, December 2010.
The poverty line in Australia is drawn from a benchmark weekly income of $62.7 established in December 1973. Since then it has been periodically updated using an index of per capita household disposable income, which includes housing and other requirements. Interestingly, the Australian poverty line is always higher than the welfare payments the state makes, like dole.
A comparison of Indian and Australian methodologies would reveal the ridiculousness of Indian estimates.
For instance, an Australian family of four with a monthly income of less than $3,341(approximately Rs. 1,65,000) is deemed to be below the poverty line in that country, whereas a city-based Indian family of the same size earning just a rupee over the beggarly sum of Rs. 3,860 (that is, Rs. 965 x 4) a month is designated “not poor” by our government and denied relief.
Even if one were to factor in the higher cost of living in Australia, it is extremely distressing to note that as per the Planning Commission’s definition, an Indian BPL family has to be 43 times poorer than its Australian counterpart to be called “poor”!
The truth is that through the Planning Commission’s affidavit to the Supreme Court, the government has sought to grossly understate endemic poverty in India — perhaps to escape censure by the aam voters in the next general election.
One wonders if members of the Planning Commission are aware of the cost of living in “urban” India.
Some tenements in Mumbai slums cost up to `15,000 per square foot. A two-room house at the Matunga labour camp, for instance, sells at Rs. 40 lakh, and it has been reported that rents in Wadala’s slums are around Rs. 2,500 to Rs. 3,000 a month for a 100-sq-ft home and around Rs. 3,500 for a 200-sq-ft tenement. Add to this the cost of food, clothing, medicine, education and you are looking at anywhere between Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 15,000 a month for a family to survive — consuming no more than 2,100 calories a day — in India’s metropolitan cities.
If Mr Ahluwalia’s Planning Commission feigns ignorance of this reality, it must be living in a time warp.

A. Faizur Rahman is a Chennai-based civil engineer and social activist. He may be reached at faizz@rocketmail.com

2434 - Rejection of Congress's Hand Symbol, A Vote Against Aadhaar/UID/NPR And Biometric Profiling - JUST

http://www.just-international.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5255:rejection-of-congresss-hand-symbol-a-vote-against-aadhaaruidnpr-and-biometric-profiling&catid=45:recent-articles&Itemid=123


Written by Gopal Krishna , Vinay Baindur & Anivar Aravind    Posted: 10 March 2012 10:48

Delhi, Patna, Chennai & Bangalore: Electorate in Uttar Pradesh have rejected the proposal of the Indian National Congress to allow themselves to be identified with their biometric data like iris scan and thumb impressions. Rahul Gandhi campaigned in UP using the Aadhaar as an election agenda. Now that he has taken responsibility of his party’s defeat, he should call for stopping Aadhaar project because the verdict is against it.

Supporting Home Ministry and Planning Commission’s scheme of unique identity, the party had showcased aadhaar and related National Population Register (NPR) for Multipurpose Identity Card (MNIC), voters in general and poor have given their verdict against it. The party had claimed that the Aadhaar/NPR card will also address the discrepancies in controversial Below Poverty Line (BPL) list by hiding violation of the provisions of Census Act with ulterior motives. It was used like a fish bait to entrap citizens against democratic and legislative mandate. The message for P Chidambaram, Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Nandan Nilekani is that UP electorate who were promised Aadhaar/NPR/MNIC has rejected it. This project is applicable to vehicles and animals too through Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in later phases.

In our country, a surveillance regime has been proposed by Indian National Congress led United Progressive Alliance for the people but not for biometric and other intrusive technologies. Besides India’s Parliamentary Standing on Finance, countries like UK, Australia, Philippines and China have rejected aadhaar/NPR/MNIC like projects respecting people’s mandate.

It has reliably been learnt that officials from Infosys company have been giving leadership training to leaders of Indian National Congress. This may have impacted decision making with regard to aadhaar/NPR/MNIC but it has clearly not worked in UP elections.

Recent reports of efforts to put Union Finance Minister and Defence Minister under surveillance reveal that there is paucity of capacity to monitor or regulate these technologies. If this is the plight of the ministers and technologically challenged political class, the threat for citizens can easily be understood.

Post UP elections, government must review its capacity to regulate an emerging technology regime that is undermining democracy and sovereignty and should not be misled by unelected cabinet ranked officials who say, “Technology has no history and no bias, it treats everyone the same way.”History of technologies reveals that it is their owners who are true beneficiaries especially when it is used for social control. There is a compelling need to urgently assess the claims and risks of biometric and surveillance technology and how some companies made UID/NPR/MNIC politically persuasive for the ruling party and intertwined the systems of technology with crying need for governance.

UP verdict is also a mandate against diluting federal structure of the country, FDI in the retail sector, free trade agreements (FTAs) that were aimed at turning India into a market democracy where executive and legislative decisions are driven by profit mongers not by public interest.

For Details: 

Gopal Krishna, 

Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL), 

New Delhi,

E-mail-krishna1715@gmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Vinay Baindur, Bangalore, Email: yanivbin@gmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Anivar Aravind, Chennai, E-mail-anivar.aravind@gmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

By Gopal Krishna , Vinay Baindur & Anivar Aravind

7 March 2012

@ Countercurrents.org