Don't opt for Aadhaar-linked machines at ration shops:Activist

The Delhi government should not make compulsory the use of Aadhaar-linked PoS machines at its fair price shops, a Delhi-based activist said today, alleging that its pilot study on 42 outlets is a "failure".
Activist Amrita Johri said the government claimed to have zero failure rate of biometric authentication using Aadhaar, but in a social audit "we have found that around 80 per cent of the people who were marked as 'yet to take ration' have been denied access to entitlements because of faulty biometric authentication".
"The software team told government officials in our presence that if the finger print does not match, a beneficiary will be marked by the software as 'yet to take ration' and will not be counted as failure in biometric authentication," she told reporters here.

She said that the number of fair price shops using PoS machines has come down from 42 to 18 since the pilot project was launched.
"Either the fair price shop has been shut or the shopkeeper has returned the PoS machines," she said.
"The pilot project is a failure and the Delhi government should not take it forward," Johri said.