Hello,
If I were asked to guess the story from the words technology, poor children and food, I would be logically forced to conclude that it is about how technology is helping the poor get easier access to food. But I would be terribly wrong.
The Collective’s Tapasya tells the story of how the government and its technology are creating barriers for the poor children in getting food that is rightfully theirs.
Previously undisclosed documents accessed by The Reporters’ Collective show that the Centre has made Aadhaar compulsory for the Supplementary Nutrition Programme -- a scheme that majorly supports children below 6 years of age.
Worldwide, barriers have always been an inbuilt feature of government aid. But if the Centre allocates funds only for those with Aadhaar, as it threatens to do, millions of children, pregnant women and lactating mothers getting nutritious meals from their anganwadi centres will be left out.
The rule will hit children the hardest: In India, only 23% of children below five years of age have an Aadhaar number, according to the Unique Identification Authority of India’s report till March 2022.
Aadhaar has been made compulsory despite a 2018 Supreme Court ruling that children can’t be denied any subsidy, benefits or services for the lack of the unique identification. Additionally, a report tabled in Parliament by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India in April 2022 raised serious concerns regarding Aadhaar for minor children.
CAG report said since biometric information like fingerprints can’t be captured for children aged below 5, the very purpose of Aadhaar -- unique identification -- was not being met.
Despite these drawbacks in making Aadhaar a must, the government sent guidelines mandating Aadhaar to all states/union territories in March this year. Most states won’t be able to skirt the Aadhaar rule because it is the Centre that majorly funds the nutrition programme.
Why is the Centre asking for Aadhaar?
According to the Centre, Aadhaar authentication is important to remove “fake/ghost beneficiaries” from the scheme and boost Poshan Tracker -- a mobile application software that tracks the progress of India’s nutrition mission.
The new rule, however, would force poor families to spend money and work hours to get Aadhaar for their children. Experts have also slammed the government for spending crores of rupees on the tracker application that doesn’t pay proportional dividends while India slipped to the bottom rank of the Global Hunger Index.
Click here to read the story published in Article 14.
Our reporter has also made a multimedia version of the story for The Quint. You can watch the story by clicking on the link below:
