India’s electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC) verification system for ration cards, designed to eliminate invalid beneficiaries from food security programs, is experiencing implementation challenges across multiple states. The system verifies ration cardholder identities through biometric authentication linked to Aadhaar cards. It builds on India’s extensive national ID infrastructure, which has already helped save an estimated $40 billion through fraud prevention in other welfare programs.
Migrant workers have been particularly affected by the verification requirements. In one documented case, brothers Jibit and Jiban Nayak, who work in Kerala’s Ernakulam district but originate from Odisha’s Lankagada village, completed their biometric submission and Aadhaar seeding at their local fair price shop in Kerala, yet their validation failed to appear at their village’s PDS dealer point.
Technical obstacles have emerged during the implementation process. Electronic Point of Sale (e-PoS) machines frequently fail to recognize fingerprints from manual laborers and young children under five years old. The challenge mirrors similar issues faced in other biometric authentication systems worldwide, where physical wear on fingerprints can impact recognition accuracy. System performance is further hampered by unreliable internet connectivity and software integration issues between e-PoS systems and ration card databases.
Food security activist Samit Panda reports that migrant workers have had to forfeit wages to preserve their ration card status, as technical difficulties extended the verification timeline. The process has also disrupted education, with some students missing school days to complete authentication requirements.
The implementation has drawn criticism for potentially conflicting with an Orissa High Court ruling that warned against denying welfare benefits to vulnerable citizens lacking Aadhaar cards or mobile numbers. The controversy echoes broader debates about India’s digital benefits system, which has achieved significant fraud reduction while raising concerns about accessibility. Human rights activist Biswapriya Kanungo has highlighted concerns about the role of PDS shopkeepers in the verification process, noting potential conflicts of interest in their involvement with ghost ration card identification.
Experts are advocating for increased transparency in the verification system. Current government portals do not provide clear status information for cardholders attempting to verify their eKYC status, unlike other successful digital ID initiatives such as India’s face authentication app for Aadhaar. The system affects over 3 crore beneficiaries across participating states, making it one of the largest biometric verification programs for food security in the world.
Sources: The New Indian Express, Godigit, Department of Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs, Himachal Pradesh
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