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| Dual yardstick of UT administration over biometrics | | Attendance suspended in Govt offices, free ration distribution after biometric verification | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, July 11: Though biometric attendance has still been suspended in all the government departments across Union Territory in view of increasing COVID-19 infections but the Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution (CAPD) has decided to distribute the five months’ free ration only after verifying the credentials of the customers through biometric verification.
The biometric attendance system in all the government departments including the civil secretariat was suspended by the government following the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic and announcement of the lockdown. The biometric attendance system for the employees as well as officials has still been suspended as a precautionary measure by the government as a precautionary measure.
But the CAPD department has decided to distribute the proposed five months ration to the ration card holders only after verification of the credentials of the customers through Aadhar based biometric verification.
The ration card holders would have to prove their credentials after punching their fingerprints to get five months’ ration. However, apprehensions have been raised by the ration dealers as well as few officials that if the biometric attendance system has been suspended in all the government officials then why the same yardstick has not been applied during the distribution of ration to the consumers. “The department is claiming that it has been doing biometric verification of the customers to save pilferage of the ration but the government is also claiming that it has already deleted over 1 Lakh fake ration card holders. If the government has already deleted fake ration card holders then the remaining are genuine and should be given ration without any biometric verification so that the infections would not further increase”, an official said, adding that the biometric verification may create havoc in Jammu province also, where infection rate is still low.
Sources also informed that the ration dealers were also not willing to distribute ration to the ration card holders by endangering their lives. “The dealers will get almost nothing by distributing the five months free ration but dangers related to health are still there, so they are also reluctant in completion of the exercise of CAPD department to distribute ration on one nation one ration card basis”, an official said.
Director of CAPD Jammu, Jatinder Singh said that the decision to distribute five months’ free ration after Aadhar linked biometric verification has been done on a mission mode. “The consumers have to mark their attendance after giving their thumb impression on the machines. The department has already distributed sufficient sanitizers and masks to the ration dealers to take precautionary measures as well as following the health advisories”, Singh said.
He evaded the query after being asked if the government has suspended the biometric attendance in government offices why the same is not being followed by CAPD. |
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