The public hearing was organised by two civil society groups, Delhi Rozi Roti Adhikar Abhiyan and Satark Nagrik Sangathan The public hearing was organised by two civil society groups, Delhi Rozi Roti Adhikar Abhiyan and Satark Nagrik Sangathan

“Agar machine hata di jaaye, toh bohot acha hai.” As 60-year-old Shanno Devi said these words, 200 people gathered at a hall in central Delhi broke into applause. “Public pareshaan hai,” she added.

Devi was talking at a public hearing on Monday about the impact of Aadhaar being made mandatory for ration in Delhi. The machine she was talking about are the electronic point of sale (e-PoS) machines installed across all 2,254 ration shops in the city. Since January, beneficiaries have been asked to authenticate their identity using fingerprints to avail foodgrain they are entitled to under the Food Security Act.

A widow living alone, Shanno Devi tried to get ration in January, but was told her fingerprints could not be recognised. Delhi’s Aadhaar-enabled Public Distribution System (AePDS) data shows no history of Shanno Devi having ever tried to authenticate her identity — no successful or unsuccessful attempts. This means that the e-PoS did not decline her request to validate who she was; rather, it did not consider her authentication attempt valid at all.

Around two dozen people spoke at the public hearing, each with a peculiar problem in getting ration in January. At least three people — Mohini Devi, Uma Shankar and Phoolmati — said that when they tried to authenticate using fingerprints, they were told that their attempt had failed, and were not given foodgrain. But AePDS shows that each of them had a successful transaction. So, while they were denied the grains, their share for January has been consumed.

Mohini Devi, 77, said she tried four-five times in January, but in vain. Unlike older ration cards, which were like passbooks and recorded when and how much foodgrain each family was issued, under the new system people like Mohini Devi can find the status of ration left only when someone accesses the centralised database online.

Some mentioned that even though they are entitled to 5 kg of grain per person per month, people running fair price shops had been giving them less. Rihan Khatoon from Rohini mentioned that she was given 35 kg of grains for her nine-member family, instead of 45 kg. The shopkeeper’s reasoning: “Server slow chal raha hai.”

As of October 2017, Delhi had 19,41,970 ration cards, all seeded to Aadhaar numbers. This means that after new ration cards were made between 2013 and 2017, each ration card had been verified using Aadhaar. During the same period, 30,096 ration cards were deleted or cancelled.

But AePDS data shows that 15,15,769 ration cards were authenticated in January, while for 31,199 ration cards the authentication failed. That still leaves around 4 lakh ration cards, all seeded to Aadhaar, for which either nobody claimed ration in January or, like Shanno Devi, could not even register an attempt to get the grain.

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