What is the issue?
- There was considerable euphoria when Aadhaar was envisioned as it was imagined as an effective mechanism to quell leakages considerably.
- But two major concerns with Aadhaar have emerged over time - security of biometrics and authentication failures.
- The later tends to affect the most vulnerable dearly and this article has delt specifically with authentication failures in PDS.
What are the contours of the problem?
- It was thought that Aadhaar (like any new technology) would be experimented first in urban areas where the connectivity and demography was suitable.
- Such a start would have helped in detecting implementation and transitional flaws with lesser pain and also made troubleshooting easier.
- After considerable such tirals, the scheme could’ve been expaned to elsewhere.
- Contrarily, Aadhaar Assisted Biometric Authentication (AABA) was piloted in Jharkhand, which has a large tribal population and poor connectivity.
- Inevitably, there have been multiple reports of authentication failures, which has adversely affected the most vulnerable segments of the population.
- As these are the people who have the greatest need for subsidised food, Aadhaar has defeated its primary purpose - ensure proper PDS delivery.
How has UIDAI responded?
- Official data hasn’t been disclosed, but it has been estimated that the exclusion errors were as high as 20% in PDS if biometric authentication was required.
- While this is shocking, the response of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to such reports is blanket denial.
- UIDAI maintains that it only provides a platform and Aadhaar applications (such as PDS) are within the domain of the respective ministries.
- But this does not abdicate UIDAI of responsibility, as the contribution of authentication failures is a significantly high.
- The limits of technology, whether in terms of the failure to authenticate biometrics or the absence of connectivity, should not hurt the poor.
- Presently, multiple announcements have been made for using virtual IDs to secure greater privacy and the use of facial biometrics to reduce errors.
- While the willingness to improve the technology is laudable, for the immediate need, UIDAI must talk with ministries to redesign priority areas like PDS.
What was Madhya Pradesh government’s design?
- The current PDS design places PDS dealer in charge of making biometrics work for each beneficiary every month.
- As this has proven to be strenuous, the Madhya Pradesh government devised a scheme where the biometric authentication would be done only once a year.
- Under this scheme, the authentication is secured by agencies unrelated to the PDS department.
- Once authenticated, households are to be given coupons for the next 1 year, which can be exchanged for buying goods from the PDS.
- The coupons were bar coded to prevent duplication and misuse, which helped in minimising the exclusion error.
- But the MP government lost its nerve on the eve of its implementation, and scraped it in entirety.
What is the way ahead?
- Considering the appealing logic, it would be good for center and the UIDAI must take up the MP government’s scheme to avoid exclusion errors.
- While weeding out identity fraud is important, they are creating a far more serious problem of exclusion errors which can cost lives (due to starvation).
- Also, smart cards that can be swiped like credit cards rather than the more sophisticated biometric authentication can be considered.
- All of this still the possibility where the dealer just lies to an ignorant customer that authentication has failed, while it hasn’t.
- This will give his access to quanities that he can dispose off in the open market.
- Contrarily, MP’s coupon scheme will in fact prevent even this as the merchandise has to be provided to secure the distributed coupons.
- A technology is only as good as the judiciousness with which it is used, and hence the Aadhaar needs to be curtailed from reaching menacing proportions.
Source: Indian Express
