Why Aadhaar is just another burden for India's elderly

Old-age brings with it its own set of miseries. In India, of the 100 million elderly, more than 51 million live below the poverty line. They are supposedly entitled to pension and subsidised rations. The meagre pension of Rs 200 a month (under the central government's IGNOAPS) reaches them late or not at all and, in most cases, after a payout to the corrupt disbursing authority. The Aadhaar scheme has been touted as the panacea to all these ills.

While theoretically, the universal adoption of the Aadhaar card will permit direct disbursal of pensions and subsidies to disadvantaged elders and others below the poverty line, ground realities appear very different.

The Aadhaar card is not proving to be inclusive despite the adoption of technology. The biometric recognition system militates against those with fading fingerprints or ageing irises. There is difference in fingerprint image quality across age groups, although the most pronounced deterioration is found in 60-plus age group. Error rate in biometric identification significantly increases with increase in age. Ageing results in loss of collagen; compared to younger skin, ageing skin is loose and dry. Working with your hands - especially if it involves handling bricks, or other rough objects - can damage prints.

The official rebuttal to this argument is that the Aadhaar also records iris information, so it doesn't really matter. There are two problems with this - one, reading iris information itself is just as error-prone, especially in senior citizens with cataract issues.

Secondly, most nodal agencies are loathe to install the costlier iris-reading software.

Rations

Pension and rations are today disbursed using the POS machine and finger print recognition. As far as rations are concerned, thousands of PDS outlets are now being provided POS terminals. The last few months have shown their dismal performance, with majority of elders being turned back due to unsuccessful finger print recognition transactions.

In fact, it has been reported that even successful recognition transactions take upto eight minutes. Even after the poor, indigent elders are issued Aadhaar cards, their fingerprints are difficult to match, when they use POS machines. These are connected to a central data registry that houses the biometric details of Aadhaar card holders. The POS machines have to be error-free, and reasonably high-quality internet bandwidth and, most importantly, electricity/battery sources should be made available for the transaction to go through.

The experience in the last few months, especially in Rajasthan which has all PDS shops with POS treminals, has been that in the majority of cases, the elderly are turned away after long waits from POS/PDS shops due to one or the other above-mentioned reasons. Now, manual overrides have been permitted, which lead to further corruption as expected. So, how good is Aadhaar?

Pensions

In the case of pensions, the problems are graver. Earlier, the elderly had to go to banks to withdraw pensions from their accounts. Often, the queues at banks, and the elder-unfriendly procedures caused distress. As a solution, a few months ago, micro-ATMs were launched to disburse pensions. The e-Mitr kendras were converted to Banking/ Business Correspondents (BCs) who authenticated the identity of elders with a swipe on the micro-ATM machine.

BC is a representative authorised to offer services such as cash transactions where the lender does not have a branch. The primary role of a BC is to oversee the development and functioning of indirect banking channels. These business correspondents are subject to RBI regulations and would have direct contact with one or more financial institutions. These BCs charge a commission from the bank for enrollment of clients, transactions, deposits et al.

Initially only "not for profit" entities were allowed to become BCs. However, of late, the RBI has eased norms like inclusion of profit entities and interoperability of business correspondents, aimed at helping customers in rural areas access banking services such as cash deposits, withdrawals, remittances and balance enquiries from anywhere in the country on the lines of ATM facilities available to customers in urban areas.

However, this gives an impetus to major corruption as each time a poor elderly who cannot read/write places the thumbprint the transaction is authorised with the BC. When the fingerprint does not match, the elder is asked to swipe his smartcard on the POS terminal. Majority of the times, it is the BC who swipes the card and asks the technology-unfriendly elder to provide his PIN number.

In effect, the unsuspecting elder has just handed over control of his bank account to the BC. The potential of corruption and mischief is frightening with likelihoods of assuming staggering proportions.

In Rajasthan alone, apparently seven lakh elders are no longer claiming their pensions. This is due to a variety of reasons, the finger prints not matching, being asked to come back time and time again. Not being able to access their pensions month after month, the poor elders no longer have the resources or the energy to once again travel to where the district officials would be available to "address their grievance".

The problem

Aadhaar and the attendant biometrics are being made mandatory for the disadvantaged to access ration and pension. The poor, who qualify for this, and are often the ones working with their hands, will be the worst-affected. Yet, the proposed law does not have any alternative provisions. It simply abandons those whose fingerprints have failed them, to their own devices.

Technology is expected to be an inclusive mechanism. In not thinking through an alternative for biometrics, the Aadhaar technology will work in the exact opposite manner.