In the last few years of documenting and collecting information about the Aadhaar project we have witnessed the impact of mandatory Aadhaar which has grievously, disproportionately and cruelly affected those who are poor, marginalised, or vulnerable. Many will remember the death of a young child Santoshi in 2017 whose family could not get rations as their Aadhaar was not linked to their ration card. In 2018, the Right to Food Campaign had reported that “At least 19 deaths were directly linked to Aadhaar: the deceased were denied food rations from government-run ration shops either because their ration cards were not linked or “seeded” with Aadhaar, or because of a failure of Aadhaar-based biometric authentication.”

We write to you today with sadness of the news of the death of another child, in Jajpur, Odisha. 

Following news reports that a child had died in March of this year due to malnutrition, a fact-finding team of local activists, social scientists and journalists visited Ghatisahi village. Their fact-finding report can be found here. 

The report found that Arjun Hembram was around 11 years old when he died on the morning of the 3rd of March, 2023. His parents Banku and Tulasi work as labourers. Banku works as a tractor driver cum daily wage labour; Tulasi works as an agricultural labour and daily wage labour. She is the major bread earner of the family. The family stays in a one-room Pradhan Mantri Awas building, which was sanctioned to Banku’s father. The family has neither agricultural land nor livestock. While Banku and his wife Tulasi have Aadhaar numbers, none of the children, including Arjun have Aadhaar numbers. The fact-finding team also found that the child’s family had not received rations through the PDS for 21 months. While Arjun’s mother Tulasi was not able to understand why her ration card had been cancelled, the team found that her name was spelt differently on her Aadhaar card and on her ration card, likely leading to the cancellation of the ration card in the process of attempting to link both.

The team found that Arjun Hembram was a child with a disability, however, no disability pension was received in his name. He was not enrolled in the local school and had no access to mid-day meals. The fact-finding report notes that – “the affected household faces multiple exclusion from different social protection programmes the family is without cultivable land and has been excluded from receiving ration for even after being eligible and were initially got a ration card, three children including the deceased were excluded from disability pension, their [the parents’] MGNREGA job card was deleted and reason for which is unclear leading to they being denied from MGNREGA work and not getting a house under PM-Awas scheme. According to the Sarpanch the MGNREGA work was stopped for some time being and he cited people's reluctance with NMMS app being one of the reasons for the same.”

Malnutrition and starvation deaths are caused by a complex interaction of many factors, and we have found that the imposition of Aadhaar exacerbates existing vulnerabilities.

Issues within the Aadhaar programme are given terms familiar to technological innovation that lighten and obscure the cost of the programme. When people are unable to link Aadhaar with ration cards due to a mismatch in their names on both, or when the internet fails, or when fingerprints don’t work, we are told to call these “teething problems” bringing to mind a small toddler who is just learning to eat solid food, rather than a state-owned programme mandatorily imposed on population which excludes many from their fundamental rights and entitlements. Exclusion is measured in the percentage of the total population, which is downplayed as being insignificant or not significant enough for action, and issues central to the functioning of the programme are seen as implementation issues rather than intrinsic failures of the programme leading to situations of crises, starvation, death and the destruction of welfare. Every instance of exclusion comes at a grave human cost.

When the Supreme Court held that mandating Aadhaar linkage was acceptable for people on welfare programmes, it had not adequately considered the vast exclusionary harms Aadhaar seeding caused.

In 2021, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a public interest petition, challenging the deletion of 3 crore ration cards, because they were not linked to Aadhaar. The petition documents starvation deaths taking place in Jharkhand, U.P., Odisha, Karnataka, M.P., Maharashtra, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana. These deleted cards were initially justified (and celebrated) as being due to fake ration cards, but subsequent investigation showed that the ration card holders were never given notice. Subsequent reports also concluded that the ration cards were genuine. The case is still pending in the Supreme Court. 

We demand accountability from senior officials of the UIDAI who administer and implement the Aadhaar programme, as well as the relevant authorities under the National Food Security Act, 2013, whose mandate is to ensure that people are able to access their fundamental right to food. 

Rethink Aadhaar stands in support of the key demands made by the Civil Society Forum on Human Rights (CSFHR), Odisha Khadya Adhikar Abhijan and Jan Swasta Abhiyan, outlined below: 

• Exclusion of children without Aadhaar from PDS is an issue of concern in this community. Steps must be taken to ensure all left out children and adults are added to the PDS immediately and the onus of submitting Aadhaar should not be left to the community. Administration must take steps to ensure not a single person is excluded from the system for want of Aadhaar. 

• As per the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India’s interim orders on the PUCL Vs. Union of India and others (Civil Writ Petition 196 of 2001) and also the New Education Policy, 2023, Aadhaar seeding is not necessary/mandatory for availing Government supported social security and food and nutritional security schemes and programmes. No child/family should be excluded from their entitlements due to Aadhaar seeding related issues. 

• The district administration needs to initiate weighing of all children in the AWCs across the regions in a mission mode to identify children suffering from malnutritionand take immediate steps for community management of malnutrition amongst children. The weighing and malnutrition measurement of children should be done every month judiciously and all AWCs should be provided with necessary equipment and training with regular monitoring. 

• The team understood that Mid Day Meal in the school is the first and primary meal for the children in the community. The administration must take steps to introduce nutritious breakfast programmes in the schools which can be supported under DMF. Also the families especially the children go through extreme food crises during summer holidays, steps must be taken to ensure MDM is continued even during summer breaks for the children. 

• Even under a universal entitlement approach, aged and disabled people, dalits, and tribal groups would need specific unconditional support of food, health services and benefits. Community kitchens could provide a cohesive solution for families with precarious food and nutrition conditions. 

• Out-of-school children are left out of the school meal programme, despite being the most vulnerable; they should be allowed to access all feeding programmes unconditionally.

• Three children with disability from the deceased’s family, though eligible for social security pension, have not been added under the scheme till the time of visit. All AWCs have details regarding children with disability, steps must be taken by the district administration to arrange necessary documents and include children and adults with disability under the pension scheme. All eligible but left out families must be included under the pension scheme as soon as possible which would strengthen financial and food security of the families.  

• Numbers of old age pension beneficiaries are said to be facing problems after the transition in the pension scheme from cash in hand to bank transfer. This can lead to extreme hardship and hunger among the aged persons. State must take steps to ensure no pension beneficiaries are excluded or cease to receive pension due to the transition and they are given cash in hand as soon as possible. 

• The MGNREGA which has consistently proved to be a  lifeline when it comes to rural work and income security, the team was told that work under the scheme has been put on hold due to the problem faced with the NMMS app. The steps must be taken to sort out the issue immediately and all households must be provided with job cards and necessary numbers of work is allocated to the village. District Mineral Fund (DMF) and MGNREGS funds can be utilized for developing private agricultural lands and community lands, especially for soil and water conservation, development of village infrastructure and community assets. The initiation of MGNREGA should also be with a functional crèche in the community which would free the mother to work under public work programs. 

• The team also understood that none of the households have cultivable agricultural land, necessary steps must be taken to include the households under FRA and land is being allocated looking at the feasibility under the Act. 

• Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) members need to play a more proactive role to address issues of chronic hunger and malnourishment, right to quality education, health services and benefits, food and nutritional security, social security benefits and wage employment, especially during the lean periods of the year. There is a greater need for better co-ordination with the Block and District administration.

• The companies which have benefited from the land and natural resources have hardly taken any measures to give back to the communities other than hardship and pollution. They are no less accountable than the administration to ensure no family lives with hunger in their vicinity. The companies like Tata Steel and others must allocate necessary resources and develop a clear integrated and overall development strategy and implemented on a Mission mode in the tribal pockets of Jajpur district. Focus should be on food and nutritional security, gender equality and women’s empowerment, promotion of Climate-resilient regenerative agriculture systems and practices to ensure food and income security of the communities.