Times of India: Surat: Monday, February 12, 2018.
An RTI
activist from the city had dug up data and examined each transaction for over a
period of six months that helped him expose theft of biometric data by
unscrupulous people for pilfering subsidized food grains distributed under
National Food Security Act (NFSA) to the needy. Police investigations have so
far revealed that the data of all biometric ration cards in the districts of
south Gujarat were stolen and sold to racketeers by them.
Ajay Jangid
(38), who runs a stock broking agency, has been filing RTI applications with
government departments for a few years now and also working to create awareness
about the Right to Information Act. Meanwhile, he had started an RTI helpline
and received maximum calls from people with regard to not getting enough food
grains as per their entitlement from Fair Price Shop (FPS). "It was
surprising to receive complaints from people about getting less food grains
than their quota. By adding biometric thumb impression to the ration card and
linking it to Aadhaar, transactions had become foolproof," Jangid said.
"Still
eligible people were not getting their quota of food grains. We started
collecting data through RTI and found that some wealthy people not eligible
under NFSA were being sold subsidized food grains," he added.
Jangid and
other activists then went to different residential societies and displayed
names of all those individuals, on projector screen, who had supposedly
purchased food grains from the FPS. "Those who were not aware about the
purchases done in their names immediately contacted us. That is how we became sure
that there was something wrong and later we dug out more data through
RTI," he added.
During
examination of data, he came to know that some software was being used by FPS
owners and he started a search for it. Jangid was offered the software for
Rs22,000 by one of the racketeers and he informed the government authorities
about the scam.
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