Aadhaar card makes it Niraadhaar

The Aadhaar card, which provides identity to the holder as citizen of the country and which is linked to entitlements under various government schemes and programmes, is depriving a sizeable section of the people of the intended benefits due to procedural lacunae and questionable fulfillment criteria.

Even though the government has announced in the Lok Sabha that Aadhaar card is not mandatory to avail the subsidy benefits, the order has not reached the dealers and they still insist on Aadhaar card. With the result, gas consumers are forced to pay more than Rs 900 for a gas cylinder.

In particular, the government’s move to integrate the unique identification number (UID) of Aadhaar card with the white ration card is depriving marginalized groups of a chance to avail of a host of benefits to which they are otherwise entitled.

For instance, in Greater Hyderabad limits, although over 50,000 ‘units’ of white ration cards were cancelled, more than one lakh beneficiaries have stopped getting the subsidised ration.

The Civil Supplies Department in Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts, which is working on linking the ration distribution with Aadhaar data, is sorting out the white ration card beneficiaries under ePDS (electronic public distribution system). Because of the issue of orders that ration should not be supplied to those who have not submitted their UID numbers, more than one lakh beneficiaries do not get the ration. Over 50,000 ‘double’ ration cards have been cancelled on the basis of the UID.

In a ration card, each beneficiary is considered as one ‘unit’. When a beneficiary of that family gets married and avails of a new ration card and his name still remains in the previous ration card, it is called a ‘double unit’. Presently, the authorities of Civil Supplies Department are sorting out such double units with the help of UID numbers of Aadhaar cards. However, in the process, the names of many genuine beneficiaries are being perfunctorily deleted from both the old and the new ration cards. As a result, the dealers are refusing to provide adequate ration to the holders of such cards. Unable to figure out the reasons, the shocked beneficiaries are running from pillar to post.

Since August, in order to track supplies of ration, the Civil Supplies Department has been providing dealers with two key books for Aadhaar seeding and related entries. This is intended to help the authorities in identifying the names that were deleted in sorting as a result of ration card integration with the Aadhaar card. Thus, when a ration card holder submits the newly acquired UID number, only the names of those mentioned in Aadhaar card are being considered as beneficiaries.