Bihar fair price dealers association has sought immediate discontinuation of the Aadhaar-based biometric authentication (ABBA) system at state’s approximately 55,000 fair price shops, run under the public distribution systems (PDS), alleging its use was spreading coronavirus. They are threatening to go on an indefinite strike from May 5 and return the biometric machines in protest if the system is not discontinued by April 30. The government has however rejected their demand.
ABBA was introduced to check leakages in the PDS, which is also the channel for delivery of additional subsidised foodgrains to the poor under Central and State-run schemes during the Covid-19 crisis.
“There are a total of 87.1mn PDS beneficiaries and around 55,000 PDS dealers. On an average, a PDS shop is visited by around 500 beneficiaries daily. There are no safety measures like sanitisers, soaps, PPEs kits for the dealers. The point of sales (POS) machines are also risky in these times of Covid,” association’s president Barun Kumar Singh said.
Singh claimed that at least 11 dealers across the state died due to Covid-19 infection in the last two weeks and a large number with their families were infected. The association has also demanded an insurance cover of ₹50 lakh for PDS dealers.
“In PDS shops, there is hardly any social distancing as people come close… to lift the foodgrains. Many times, the servers are down and the staff has to help the beneficiaries to use the POS machines, exposing them to the risk of contracting the virus,” Singh said.
He said the association wrote several letters to the chief minister, chief secretary and food department secretary in this regard.
“The government can easily stop the use of POS for beneficiaries and make it manual, ensuring less contact and touching. The biometric machines could be used only by the dealers for authentication through thumb impression for the time being. It will protect us all,” he added.
There are total 17.9mn ration card holder families totalling 87.2mn beneficiaries under the national food security (NFS) scheme in Bihar.
The state government said there was no plan to discontinue the use of the biometric machines for beneficiaries under the NFS scheme. “There is no plan to exempt biometric authentication,” Vinay Kumar, the secretary food and consumer protection department, said in a text message responding to queries on the demands raised by the association.
He added that all POS machines have the facility for contactless Iris scan. “This can be used for authentication,” he said, adding, normally 3.5 lakh card holders use the option regularly.
