Only four per cent of the ration cards cancelled in Odisha were on account of duplication discovered through Aadhaar seedingSuggesting, say it's critics, the Government’s claims about savings in social welfare schemes are exaggerated.“Of the 6,60,000 cards cancelled in Odisha (since Nov 2015 to date) only about 27,000 odd cards have been on account of duplicates that emerged from Aadhaar seeding.” said a senior official on condition of anonymity.The Supreme Court is presently hearing arguments on whether Indians have a right to privacy and whether Aadhaar, India’s biometric identity programme, violated that right. Savings to the exchequer have been the Narendra Modi Government’s most persistent defence in insisting on Aadhaar for all kinds of social welfare schemes, banking and even telecom services.“Like the NDA’s other tall claims, this too is baseless and wildly exaggerated," said Pratap Keshari Deb, Rajya Sabha member and spokesperson of the Biju Janata Dal. While Naveen Patnaik’s BJD has not formally opposed the Aadhaar program, its MPs have spoken out against the Modi government’s insistence that possession of Aadhaar be made mandatory for access to services.BJD chief whip Tathagata Satpathy has been one of the scheme’s most vocal critics. Speaking in Parliament, Satpathy had warned, "Aadhaar is being showcased as a tool exclusively meant for disbursement of subsidies but we do not realise it can also be used for mass surveillance or, to take it a step further to a dangerous proposition, for genetic or ethnic cleansing."More than a billion Indians have had their biometrics taken in order to be issued a 12 digit unique identity number, more often than not because they have been told they had no other choice. In information shared with the Lok Sabha, on 22 Novemer of 2016 the Government had stated that 7,61,450 ration cards had been cancelled in Odisha - a figure it later attributed to the impact of Aadhaar (and used to calculate savings from Aadhaar) while data shows that these cards were cancelled for a range of different reasons in the run-up/implementation of the National Food Security Act in Odisha.Officials of Odisha’s consumer welfare department, speaking on condition of anonymity, say the large majority of duplicates and ineligible cards they have uncovered and cancelled so far were identified by comparing income tax payees, e-vahan (of vehicle registrations), and government employee databases against PDS beneficiaries in the state, even before Aadhaar seeding had begun in full force.The department had further, back in July of 2017, written to all collectors that "under no circumstances the National Food Security Act (NFSA) beneficiaries should be debarred from getting them entitled food grains." It was precisely to avoid a situation like the Jharkhand case (of a starvation death allegedly due to being denied ration) that the letter was issued, said the official.According to official data, as of 20th Sept 2016 as many as 6,16,798 households (comprising of 22,64,847 lakhs individuals) were identified and weeded out from PDS list and a sum of Rs 42.13 crore had been collected from these (largely ineligible) cardholders. In fact, says Sameet Panda, from the Odisha Khadiya Adhikar Abhiyan which works on Right to Food, "We have yet to find a duplicate ration card since the implementation of the NFSA 2013 which does challenge claims that Aadhaar is instrumental in weeding out duplicates."