Aadhaar is hurtling us towards a Black Mirror dystopia with even children not being spared from the unique identity project, Reetika Khera, Associate Professor, IIM-Ahmedabad, said.
“Children don't understand what this is...the government doesn’t seem to understand the concept of consent.
“Now, because of the Supreme Court order, there is a possibility of the government implementing it properly,” Dr. Khera said, delivering the T.G. Narayanan Memorial Lecture 2018 on ‘Aadhaar, Welfare and the Media’, at the Asian College of Journalism on Monday.
25 deaths
Dr. Khera said there have been around 25 deaths related to disruption caused by Aadhaar.
Explaining the various schemes, she said the concept of corruption being diminished due to Aadhaar was more of rhetoric.
“In 2008, the Central government made it mandatory for wages to be paid into bank and post office accounts.
“In NREGA, the dramatic reduction in wages corruption is because of separation of the implementing agency and the payment agency.
“As with PDS, the decline in corruption in NREGA pre-dates Aadhaar-integration”, she said.
On the issue of making Aadhaar mandatory for children to avail of mid-day meals at school, she said the onus should be put on teachers and the school administration, who are inflating student figures to siphon off funds.
The government should investigate them rather than putting the children to hardship, she added.
Nightmarish experience
She said the process of linking of Aadhaar to various schemes, and especially to the PDS for the poor has been nightmarish.
“There are many cases where the poor beneficiaries are either too old to walk, or ill, to go to an enrolment centre to get their Aadhaar linked, and the gram level officials are too stretched with work in every direction,” she said.
“Aadhaar has done very little role to fix corruption. You could still go to your ration shop and end up getting lesser quantity of ration than what you are entitled to.
“The corruption continues as before. Aadhaar is pain without gain,” Dr. Khera said.
