Why in news?
The Supreme court recently retained section 7 of the Aadhaar act.
What is the provision?
- Section 7 states that central or state governments can make possession of an Aadhaar number mandatory for receipt of subsidies, benefits or services funded out of the Consolidated Fund of India.
- An individual who has not been assigned an Aadhaar number, shall be offered an alternated viable means of identification till number is assigned to him/her.
- The court retained this provision noting that it is aimed at offering benefits to the marginalised section and hence becomes an aspect of social justice.
What are the concerns?
- As per the UIDAI statement, the 'failed percentage' of iris and finger authentication are 8.54% and 6%, respectively.
- Since 2017, there have been at least 25 hunger deaths that can be traced to Aadhaar-related disruption in rations and pensions.
- Though UIDAI has taken step to put in place an exemption mechanism to address disruption, there is little evidence of its implementation.
- The no.of people (as % of total population) excluded from getting Aadhaar is small.
- But it happens to be the most vulnerable like bed-ridden old persons, victims of accidents, people with visual disabilities, etc.
- An RTI response shows that 99.97% of those who got Aadhaar numbers did so on the basis of existing IDs.
- Hence it clears the misconception that aadhaar is the only (or first) ID for millions of Indians to receive government benefits.
- Also, each government programme has its own eligibility criterion to include or exclude people.
- For instance, even in the PDS, there are State-specific inclusion/exclusion criteria and targeted/universalised PDS.
- Now, after Aadhar, beneficiaries under the state-specific list have to link their aadhar number to remain eligible for PDS.
- With Aadhaar being made compulsory, it has become necessary but not sufficient to get welfare.
- The exclusion errors under PDS remains to be addressed.
- Identity frauds where the welfare rolls in India included some ghost beneficiaries.
- Quantity frauds, where a beneficiary is sold less than his/her entitlement, but signs off on the full amount also continued.
- A rogue dealer can force the beneficiary to biometrically authenticate a lower purchase than what he/she was entitled to.
- But the recent independent surveys and government data are beginning to suggest that it wasn’t the main form of corruption.
- For instance, linking Aadhaar cards with the PDS in Odisha led to the discovery of only 0.3% duplicates.
- Hence the government should ensure that no beneficiary is left out and every deserving person be included in the list of beneficiaries.
Source: The Hindu
