NEW DELHI: On the third day of the NREGA Sangharsh Morcha, hundreds of MNREGA rural workers gathered at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi to share concerns about hurdles caused by Aadhaar , a biometrics linked ID.

Aadhaar is being made mandatory even for access to essential services, even though evidence on the ground shows that it does not function with any measure of efficiency.

Tukaram of Jagrat Adivasi Dalit Sangathan, Madhya Pradesh, said that in his village, pregnant women faced enormous problems as delivery time approached. “To call the ambulance on the 108 number, we have to produce evidence of Aadhaar registration. One woman worker forgot to carry her Aadhaar card to hospital and did not remember her number, and we were faced with delay in all services.”

Tukaram said linking of Aadhaar to health, education services and rations was creating enormous disruption. “We have to go multiple times and make payments repeatedly. First, we spend hundreds of rupees to make the card as operators ask for money. Then, workers have to go and link it. Aadhaar has become mandatory for almost everything now – from birth certificates to cremation rituals. Even to approach the district court, one has to produce Aadhaar.”

Pushpa, a resident of Delhi, said, “This Aadhaar is killing people; whether it is access to ration or pension or hospital, nothing happens with it. It has become an excuse for government servants to not help.”

From Uttar Pradesh, some workers said wages under NREGA had suddenly halted. Workers said that the MNREGA MIS rejected their claims for wages, saying their Aadhaar had become “inactive”. The Aadhaar Act states that government can “deactivate” any resident’s Aadhaar for “any reason deemed appropriate” without giving prior notice. Problems in rural areas because of this are now huge.

Nobody even tells us why it is inactive, said Norti Bai from Ajmer in Rajasthan.

Vikas Ojha from Uttar Pradesh said Aadhaar database demographic details are full of errors, and the centres charge bribes for updating information.

Norat Mal from Tilonia, Ajmer, said 40 workers from his village had found that their wages under MNREGA were held up as their Aadhaar was “inactive”. Daaku Devi from Jawaja, Ajmer, said the fingerprints of the elderly are not read by the software. “Several old people cannot access pension anymore,” she said. Indira from Rajsamand, Rajasthan, said it was not like fingerprints once captured in the software stay the same. “We are all people who work with our hands, and the calloused fingers do not always throw up the same fingerprints. The POS machine fails to recognize that what it captured a long while back was actually just another version of what our prints have since become,” she said.

