Telangana: Move to forego biometric at FP shops questioned

Hyderabad: The move to replace the bio-metric system (temporarily) at fair price shops (FPS) with OTP or IRIS (Intelligent Retinal Imaging Systems) has been questioned by city-based social activists, who feel that the decision of the Civil Supplies department would only deprive the poor's 'right to food.' They said IRIS devices remain insufficient at FPS. Moreover,a majority of shops have not linked their mobile numbers with Aadhaar.

The activists question the civil supplies department officials whether there is a sufficient number of IRIS devices available at the fair price shops in Telangana. Also, some netizens have tweeted in social media platforms that the IRIS devices may have the risk of spreading virus.

"During the month of May a Public Interest litigation(PIL) was filed by me. The High Court has ordered to not use bio-metric devices, as they would be a chance of spreading of virus. The civil supplies department has instructed all fair price shops that instead of the bio-metric system there would be a provision of third-party authentication – tahsildars or village revenue officers would guide the people. But it has been found that a few cases were reported regarding black-marketing due to third-party authentication," said S Q Masood, a social activist.

He pointed out that the HC has ordered to use any other alternative mode rather than bio-metric devices. The two options, OTP and IRIS, should be provided to all the fair price shops for drawing their ration from February 1. They could go in for any other third alternative.

"As there are many marginalised community people in the city who have not updated their phone numbers in their Aadhaar cards and also as people change their numbers very frequently, it would only lead to technical issues. How would the officials ensure that people would show their OTP for drawing rations? Still many shops do not even have IRIS devices. This is an irrational step taken by Telangana State Civil Supplies officials, as they should have come up with other fool-proof mechanism" he added.

Netizens also questioned the practicality, as it would only create more confusion. Bharat Varma@ Bharat Varma 3 tweeted "This is quite insane. Just how do they propose to prevent Covid infection from the IRIS scanners (which are significantly more capable of virus transmission through the eyes)?"

It may be mentioned here on January 20, the State Government, following the High Court orders, has taken the decision.