JAIPUR: The Supreme Court has reiterated at least six times that the Centre cannot make Aadhaar mandatory for access to welfare services. Even so the government continues to insist that people have an Aadhaar card before they can avail welfare services, leading to mass exclusion from such essential services as ration, pension and even healthcare. On Wednesday, citizens groups from across the country took stock of the situation and decided to “come together to resist the undemocratic and unlawful decision taken by the Union of India, of insisting on citizens having Aadhaar to claim their services”. The Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, Soocha and Rozgar Abhiyan, Pension Parishad, Delhi Solidarity Group, Satark Nagrik Sangthan, organizations representing fishermen in Kerala were all represented at the meeting on November 16 in New Delhi.The group plans to “support and work towards a series of public actions such as state and national public hearings, developing and publicizing correct information on the implications of Aadhaar, including through a website for building awareness on the issue, conduct micro studies on the impact of Aadhaar on welfare delivery etc. to present the actual impact, which is in complete contrast with the narrative of ‘efficiency’ that the State continues to propagate,” the group said in a press release issued on Thursday.“Shankar Singh of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, Rajasthan, said that based on recent government figures, it had emerged that of the approximately 68 lakh pensioners availing old age, widow, and disability pensions in the state, the government had cancelled pensions of approximately seven lakh people, and temporarily stopped the pensions of approximately three lakh people. Out of these, nearly two lakh accounts had been suspended, as the account holders had been declared as having died. However, upon field verification conducted by MKSS in one Gram Panchayat alone (Kushalpura Gram Panchayat, Bhim Block), it was found that 21 out of the 44 pensioners declared dead by the administration, were in fact alive. Most disturbingly, four old age pensioners actually died after their pensions were inexplicably stopped and before the error could be rectified. Forced to act on the basis of this limited data, the administration re-examined the data for the entire state, and after this verification, 1309 of the 3729 pension accounts cancelled earlier, in Bhim block alone, were restarted,” the press release said.The group found that in August, only about 63.5 lakh of total approximately 99.7 lakh people in Rajasthan were able to get their ration grains after biometric authentication. “Despite such a high failure rate, the Government of Rajasthan continues to deny the extraordinary rates of exclusion, by stating that this was ‘weeding out’ of bogus beneficiaries from the system, said Nikhil Dey of MKSS. It is important to mention that the state government has not taken any criminal and disciplinary action against any agency for continuing to deliver services to apparently bogus beneficiaries prior to the introduction of Aadhaar,” the press release said, adding that the fishermen’s representatives complained that the work in the sea and with fishing nets leaves their hands with abrasions that then make it next to impossible for them to use any biometric device successfully.Ashish Ranjan, an activist with Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan, said that medical establishments had started asking for Aadhaar mandatorily from those seeking treatment. Sunita, of Domestic Workers Union, said that small enrollment camp establishments were demanding Rs 200 from people to do the Aadhaar enrollment. She raised a legitimate question as to why the government was asking for Aadhaar proof when they already had ration cards and pension papers.“An immense anger is being felt by persons who have been unjustly excluded from accessing their legitimate legal entitlements,” the press release said.