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In the lanes of Aasan village in Rajasthan’s Rajsamand district, 70-year-old Bhuri Bai Daluram had been standing in a queue for an one hour to get her E-KYC (electronic know your customer) done and to collect her 25 kilogrammes of monthly food grains for her five-member family.
But when her turn finally came, the machine informed her E-KYC was already completed and her ration lifted. The wheat was already collected by a "Bhuri Bai" — not her.
Confused and upset, Bhuri Bai Daluram recalled the moment of disbelief back in August when she had tried to claim her wheat. "I had to buy wheat from the market that time," she told Down To Earth (DTE), sitting at her modest home, her face lined with worries.
The issue was simple: An error in the system, one that has left her family without their entitled share under National Food Security Act for months.
The E-KYC process requires in-person verification of each family member listed on the ration card. Individuals must authenticate their identity using their fingerprints and Aadhaar card, which must be linked to their ration card.
Rajasthan was among the first states to implement E-KYC for beneficiary identification.
“Since this KYC thing started, my family has lost out on our share of food so often,” said Bhuri Bai Daluram, sitting in her house in Rajsamand’s Aasan village.
She is not the only Bhuri Bai to not have received her share of wheat in the last few months.
Some three kilometres away, Bhuri Bai Balai, who shared the same first name and is entitled to 5 kg ration per month, said she started getting 25 kg wheat instead of 5 kg after she got her E-KYC done in August. But that was just for two months. Currently she is not even able to avail even her rightful 5 kg wheat entitlement.
So, what exactly happened here?
The women, sharing the same name, have found themselves caught in a digital mess that has left them without their much-needed wheat entitlement for months; all due to a bureaucratic mistake.
After getting her E-KYC done in August, an error by the shop dealer led to her biometric data being linked to Bhuri Bai Daluram’s Aadhaar number. As a result, that month Bhuri Bai Balai wrongfully got Bhuri Bai Daluram’s share of food grains.
This created a cruel problem: The Bhuri Bai who went first to the shop to claim ration got it and the other one lost out for that month. The shop dealer had told both to “adjust” and share the 25 kg ration between themselves.
“In August and September our family didn’t get any ration, as the other Bhuri Bai gave her thumb impression and took our share of 25 kg and the dealer told us to adjust for some time and ask her for 20 kg,” says Bhuri Bai Daluram, adding that Bhuri Bai Balai refused to share the ration when the former’s family members asked for it.
When the Daluram family constantly complained, the dealer realising the “mistake” started to give the Daluram family their 25 kg wheat since October onwards. While he could not delink the biometrics of one Bhuri Bai with the other’s Aadhaar, he started to give the Daluram family its 25 kg wheat.
And as a “solution”, he linked Bhuri Bai Balai’s allocation with another household in the village. She is now dependent on another family for her ration.
“That family only gets 10 kg wheat for two persons and they are not ready to spare extra for me. I went to the district supply officer and gave an application but nothing has changed,” said Bhuri Bai Balai.
Raj Shekhar, an independent researcher and activist associated with the Right to Food Campaign, pointed out that such autonomy given to the ration card dealers for deleting the names is concerning.
DTE visited the fair price shop but it was shut on the day and calls to the dealer have gone unanswered.
For Bhuri Bai Balai, who has no other source of income, the loss of her ration was not just an inconvenience — it is a direct threat to her food security.
Without the monthly wheat allocation, she faces the possibility of going hungry. For now, she is buying food from her monthly pension of Rs 1,000, which till now she was spending on other household expenses.
The ongoing E-KYC and insistence on biometric identification for everything from accessing ration to pension is creating such unique problems in India’s villages, raising serious concerns and highlighting potential flaws in the massive biometric-based identification drive, particularly in rural areas where people often have limited access to technology and a higher likelihood of identity confusion.
The government claims the aim of the e-KYC process is to ensure “rightful targeting” and eliminate fake ration cards but DTE has reported how this has been an exclusionary exercise for many legitimate beneficiaries.
The Bhuri Bai case is not an isolated one and not restricted to just ration allocation.
It has been over a year that an identity mix-up has left Pani Khema Ram without her vital Rs 1,150 monthly social security pension. It all happened because her pension has been wrongfully diverted due to a series of errors linked to the Aadhaar biometric system.
In 2023, her pension suddenly stopped coming. She went to the block and the panchayat office for enquiring.
“They saw my papers and when they checked the details on the online portal, they found that there was some other name and photo against my Aadhaar number,” she says.
When she saw the photo, she was surprised to find it was her 62-year-old neighbour Pani Badha Ram.
DTE met both the Panis last month in their village Oda and a tale of confusion unravelled.
It began when three women, all with the name Pani but with distinct last names — Pani Badha Ram, Pani Khema Ram and Pani Madhu Ram — fell victim to a string of errors during their biometric verification process at the local ‘E-mitra’ kiosk.
But among the three, the consequences have been severe for Pani Khema Ram.
In 2023, Pani Khema Ram, a 60-year-old widow, visited the E-mitra centre to update her records and verify her biometric details, necessary once a year for receiving pension under state government’s pension scheme.
Like many other widows in rural Rajasthan, Pani Khema Ram relied on the government’s widow pension for her survival. As a manual labourer, she earned a meagre Rs 250 a month working under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, but her pension was supposed to supplement her income and provide for her basic needs.
However, during the biometric verification process, a critical error occurred. When Pani Khema Ram gave her thumb impression for the verification, her Aadhaar number was mistakenly linked to Pani Badha Ram's bank account details.
In something like a domino effect, when Pani Badha Ram went to complete her own biometric verification at the same centre, Pani Madhu Ram's KYC information was erroneously updated in the system, resulting in Pani Madhu Ram starting to receive pension payments meant for Pani Badha Ram.
DTE found that there were some 280 cases of “wrong seeding” and identity mismatch in just one block.
Govind Lal Regar, officer at Deogarh block, under which Oda village falls, informed DTE that out of 280 cases that emerged in one year, corrections were made in around 180 cases.
Ironically, while the mistake was a result of callousness and was done locally, the corrections cannot be made at the village or block level.
The corrections have to be okayed by the social welfare department of the state government in Jaipur.
“Initially the department made the corrections but in April 2024 we got an order that no more corrections will be done and that all such accounts will need to be closed and fresh biometrics verification will be done to restart pension delivery,” said Regar.
So this means that for Pani Khema Ram to be able to get her pension, both Pani Badha Ram and Pani Madhu Ram have to agree to close their pension accounts and give their biometrics afresh.
“It will take just a day for this process and I have requested the three Panis many times but the two who are receiving their pensions are afraid of losing out on it too so they have not agreed for the process,” said Regar.
He has written some 15-16 letters in the last one year to the social welfare department to find an easier solution in such cases.
However, in the end, Pani Khema Ram — whose pension had been diverted to Pani Badha Ram — has been left without any financial support. Despite her repeated complaints to the local block office and the panchayat office, Pani Khema Ram has been unable to resolve the issue, and her pension remains suspended.
The payment was crucial for her life, helping her cover basic needs like food, medicines and other essentials.
“I don’t know what to do anymore,” Pani Khema Ram said, her voice trembling with frustration. “I go to the panchayat office, I go to the block office, I fill out forms, but nothing happens. I’ve been without my pension for over a year now.”
The case is emblematic of a growing number of errors linked to the use of Aadhaar and biometrics for verification in rural India where digital records, meant to streamline government welfare programs, instead lead to confusion and hardship for the most vulnerable sections of society.
“The problem is that there are many people with similar names, and the system doesn’t always capture the nuances of their identity,” said Kalu Ram Salvi, a rights activist with Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, an organisation helping people navigate the challenges of the e-KYC process.
A detailed version of this story is published in the 16-31 January, 2025 print edition of Down To Earth