A “know-your-customer” campaign launched by the Centre to verify an estimated 810 million ration card holders eligible for free foodgrains is causing intense distress to poor and vulnerable households in multiple states, a network of food rights activists said on Wednesday.

The Right to Food Campaign (RTF) has said it has received reports that people are rushing back to their villages because they have been informed that failure to get the electronic KYC process done for the entire family will render them ineligible for rations.

Last year, the Narendra Modi government had announced that it would extend the free foodgrains scheme — launched in April 2020 to mitigate hardships faced by vulnerable households during the Covid-19 economic disruptions — from January 1, 2024, for five years.

The scheme provides eligible households rice, wheat and coarse grains such as millet through a network of 5 lakh fair-price shops across India.

Members of the RTF who have earlier criticised the government for keeping millions of people outside the foodgrains scheme by delaying the 2021 census have now decried the eKYC directive, saying it is causing “havoc” to sections of eligible ration card holders.

“At a time when crores of people have been left out of the food security net on account of the government’s failure to carry out the census of 2021, it is inexplicable that the energy and resources of the government are being put on creating further hindrance for existing ration card holders, rather than issuing ration cards to all those excluded,” the RTF said in a statement.

The network said ration card holders had received phone messages asking them to visit the nearest ration shop with their entire family to comply with the eKYC authentication requirements. Ration shopkeepers have informed cardholders that failure to get the eKYC done will result in denial of the foodgrains.

The requirement for the whole family to turn up for the authentication exercise has resulted in the marginalised sections, including migrant workers, the elderly and those with disabilities being the most impacted and likely to be left out of the eKYC, the network has said. The eKYC process typically involves verification of a person’s name, age and address.

Unleashing the eKYC process in this manner appears intended to exclude some people from the ration cards, said Dipa Sinha, a member of the RTF. “Unemployment and inflation have made people vulnerable and many more people need access to rations,” Sinha said.

The messages received by ration card holders do not provide detailed information about the eKYC rules, deadline, necessity or the process. “This has led to situations where people are spending thousands of rupees to rush to ration shops in their home states with their families,” said RTF member Anjali Bhardwaj.

The RTF demanded that the government stop the eKYC process and immediately issue ration cards to those left out because of the delay in the 2021 population census.

“A government that claims to be pro-women is creating unprecedented havoc in their lives by forcing them to run around for even their most basic entitlement of rations,” said Annie Raja, another RTF member. “Will they cancel ration cards of those
unable to comply?"