-Down to Earth Poor, elderly not able to match fingerprints on system, not getting food grain as a result Thousands of poor villagers have been pushed to the brink of starvation in Bihar as the biometric system installed to curb leakages in the public distribution system (PDS) is proving to be the stumbling block on their way. The Food and Consumer Protection Department in the state has made it mandatory for use of...

-The Hindu Aadhaar-based biometric authentication did not reduce PDS leakages, finds Jharkhand-based empirical study “Aadhaar has curtailed leakages of government subsidies... Through Aadhaar, savings worth ₹90,000 crore have accrued to the government,” said Ajay Bhushan Pandey, then CEO of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and current Revenue Secretary, in UIDAI’s 2017-18 annual report. But not so fast, say Professors Karthik Muralidharan, Paul Niehaus and Sandip Sukthankar. They have just published a...

-The Indian Express In Odisha, procurement of paddy during the ongoing 2019-20 Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) is, for the first time, being done from registered farmers only after Aadhaar-based biometric authentication. FIRST IT was fertilisers, where the NDA government made disbursal of subsidy conditional upon actual sales to farmers getting registered on PoS (Point of Sale) machines in retail outlets. That reform measure — to ensure that the benefit of minimum support...

-The Hindu Wages to the tune of Rs.53.8 crore are yet to be paid in State Vijayawada; Frequent changes in wage disbursal methods and technical glitches, coupled with government apathy, have deprived 8.6 lakh porters of their hard-earned wages worth Rs.53.8 crore in the 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). “Factors that stand between the workers and their wages range from failure of the...

-Livemint.com * A new research paints a mixed picture on the relative merits of Aadhaar-based biometric authentication in the PDS * The research highlight there can be several ways to authenticate beneficiaries in the public distribution system Since 2017, the Indian government has mandated the use of Aadhaar-based biometrics in India’s public distribution system (PDS) to tackle the longstanding issue of leakages. Critics, however, suggest that this has excluded many beneficiaries and increased...