Why ABBA must go

Why ABBA must go

Context

• Deaths due to hunger has become a huge problem that India is dealing today and government still remains in denial.
• The Food Ministry in Delhi issued an order in late October that is silent on the crucial issue of reinstating wrongly cancelled ration cards and makes token concessions with no guarantee of implementation.

What is the issue?

• The starvation deaths in 2002 became the facilitator for positive action, which included the passing of judicial orders and even political action. Since then, there has been appreciable improvement in programmes of social support including, but not limited to, the Public Distribution System (PDS). Similar action is required today.

Aadhaar seeding

• Seeding refers to the practice of entering Aadhaar numbers for each household member on the ration card.
• It is a pre-requisite for the Aadhaar-based Biometric Authentication (ABBA) system, the practice of using an electronic point of sale (PoS) machine to authenticate each transaction.
• The Central government has been insisting on 100% Aadhaar “seeding” across schemes such as the PDS, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and pensions.
• The government has made seeding and the ABBA mandatory in the PDS.
• In their enthusiasm to achieve 100% Aadhaar-seeding targets, some field functionaries just deleted the names of those who did not submit Aadhaar details.
• Few waited till the deadline and then struck off names. The government claims that all of these were “fake”, detected due to Aadhaar, thus saving crores of rupees.
• According to the State Food Minister, their ration card was cancelled in July because they failed to seed it with Aadhaar.

What happened to the ones with no seeding?

• Pensions suddenly stopped for many pensioners and they had no idea why. No one had told them about Aadhaar.
• In some cases, the middlemen had seeded it wrongly. Others still had tried repeatedly and failed. Seeding is not as simple as it sounds.

The Aadhaar-based Biometric Authentication (ABBA)

• Seeding is just one of the many barriers that the ABBA has created in the smooth functioning of the PDS.
• The ABBA requires that family members be enrolled for Aadhaar and correct seeding.
• At the time of purchase, the ABBA requires power supply, a functional PoS machine, mobile and Internet connectivity, State and Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) servers to be ‘up’, and for fingerprint authentication to be successful.

The ABBA system in PDS outlets is built around a set of “fragile technologies” (Drèze 2016) that need to work simultaneously for successful transactions. These are:

1. Seeding of Aadhaar numbers: An eligible individual can become a beneficiary and access the PDS system only if her Aadhaar number is correctly seeded onto the PDS database and added to the household ration card.
2. Point of Sale (PoS) machines: The entire process at the PDS outlet is dependent on the PoS machine. If it malfunctions, no transaction can be made. The first step in the process requires the dealer to enter the ration card number of the beneficiary’s household onto the PoS machine.
3. Internet connection: Successful working of the PoS machine depends on internet connectivity as verification of the ration card number and the beneficiary’s biometric fingerprint is carried out over the internet.
4. Remote Aadhaar servers: Remote Aadhaar servers verify the ration card number and initiate fingerprint authentication.
5. Fingerprint recognition software: The beneficiary proves her identity by submitting to fingerprint recognition in the PoS machine. Upon verification, the PoS machine indicates that the beneficiary is genuine and that foodgrains can be distributed to her household.

Demerits of ABBA

• There is enough evidence to show that the ABBA does not work. The Finance Ministry’s latest Economic Survey based on micro-studies, reports high biometric failure rates.
• In Rajasthan, government data for the past year show that around 70% of cardholders are able to use the system successfully. The rest have either been tripped up by one of the ABBA hurdles or, less likely, they did not attempt to buy PDS grain.
• In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, it is used to disburse MGNREGA wages and pensions: biometric failure rates are between 8 and 14%. In some months, one in four pensioners returns empty-handed.
• Neither seeding nor the ABBA can stop quantity fraud. In a survey in Jharkhand, dealers continue to swindle people by cutting up to a kg of their grain entitlement despite successful ABBA authentication.
• Identity fraud, for example in the form of duplicate ration cards, only requires Aadhaar-seeding; the ABBA is unnecessary.
• Two caution on seeding: it can be foolproof against identity fraud only in a universal system. More seriously, it raises privacy issues.
• People are being forced to cross five meaningless hurdles in the form of electricity, functional PoS, connectivity, servers and fingerprint authentication in order to have access to their ration.
• If the government continues on the ABBA, it will actively sabotage the PDS, which, quite literally, is a lifeline for the poor.

What should be done?

• The ABBA must be withdrawn immediately from the PDS and pensions in favour of alternative technologies such as smart cards.
• This will allow us to keep the offline PoS machines with smart cards and throw out the Internet dependence and biometric authentication.