So, again with all this background this is what this scheme about 3-4 years back was
doing and and we will talk a what is happening to its variants in other states now yeah.
So, this scheme was called Ahara. So, the first one was a ration card database and the
expectation through that database to take care of most of these concerns yeah.
So, you have biometrics at that point aadhar was not that prevalent because this start
around 2010-11. So, you this had a biometrics, so fingerprints were there yeah. So, there
was a attempt to ensure that at least these things do not happen, yeah. So, there was
a physical verification you had to go and enroll yourself in the photo bio centres which
your set up in every word in urban areas and in panchayath in rural areas. So, households
or family members at to go there get their fingerprints captured yeah, so there was a
one there there was one attempt of trying to weed out all those bogus duplicate ghost
cards yeah. Bogus to a certain extent suspect through
this because that process does not account for APL, BPL, it only says that there is a
physical person who is attached to this ration card yeah, but there was some attempt
because there was a lot lot of say lot of human cry at that point around 2012-13. The
total number of households in Karnataka was about 1.2 crores, the population was 6, 6,
around 6 crores and the total number of ration card was about 1.8 crores yeah. So, when you
get into that state; obviously, there is something that is not happening properly, yeah. So,
because of that we went into all that stuff and a lot of ration cards bogus, ghost
were weeded out. So, almost 50-60 lakhs ration cards got eliminated
in this processor. So, came down from about 1.6, 1.7 crores to about 1, 1 crore or say
90 lakh still on the higher side if you consider the planning commission at that
that point in time there poverty statistics because they said that BPL households in Karnataka
should be around 30 percent not more than that. But then the state had a certain more
accommodative policy of identifying BPL households for ration cards and therefore, the numbers
could have been slightly higher yeah. So, this ahara this ration card database which
was biometric which which use fingerprints was designed to ensure a lot of inclusion
errors are taken care of. The way this was designed did not do a lot too yeah, to the
exclusion error. The second component, and this was done pretty
well yeah. So, this was there was a state wide campaign and lot of effort lot
of buying from the political establishment using the CM yeah. All of that went into a
lot of media coverage yeah, in to ensuring that the ration card data base of eligible
households was cleaned up yeah. The second one was a a financial and stock accounting
system. This was to ensure that leakages during the supply chain they are taken care of yeah.
So, this was, this this had to register the amount of food grains received at all the
authorized wholesale points and those lifted by the ration dealers every month. This does
not like, this was not done as extensively as the first one yeah this was more or less
discover the entire state all the beneficiaries after a particular point in time where denied
ration from ration shops if they did not have a biometric enabled card at that
point in time yeah. And the case that say Professor Shrishara was talking about Jharkhand
is an instance of a similar case there its aadhaar enabled, but beyond a particular time
there were households that were denied ration if they did not have a card which was biometric,
which had a biometric say data embedded into it.
And the third one was you invoked that biometric database to provide food grains at the front
end. So, at the right ration shops as I when I went to claim my ration and I give my ration
card number and my authentication through fingerprint one of the household members it
said oh you are entitled for this much and this is what you are going to get yeah. And
they were these kinds of devices that were kept the the I think in a few district, about
5 districts it was pretty widespread , but then it can repeated out after after
sometime. So, this is an electronic weighing machine
yeah. So, it weighs and the this is also a pass kind of device. So, this is where you
enter the say the card details and the kind of authenticate through your fingerprint and
it says oh you are entitled for so much and it also speaks, speaks out yeah. So, for those
who are not able to read, for those who cannot see what is written there its speaks out saying
that this is the household you are entitled for so much and when the weight was taken
it would also announced that the weight is 20 kgs and it is 20 kgs rice yeah and then
this had to be given to the kind of the household there.
So, this this this was, so this was done pretty kind of seriously. This was enforce
pretty seriously in a few contact. It did not work for various reasons 100 percent
of the time because of issues with fingerprint, because of issues with connectivity with,
because of various other aspects yeah I am not only related to the technology, but also
related to the other say other incentives and disincentives, intensives, incentives
that are embedded in a system design like this yeah.
Now, what is happened? So, so this is what the design looks like yeah and this is Karnataka
about 2-3 years back. If you look at if if if some of your followed the debates around
aadhar and PDS. What is it that you have anyone has been following those discussions? What
kind of designs are coming out in terms of PDS and aadhar? The claims are that aadhar
is going to take care of all the problems in PDS yeah. So, if you happened to go and
see the aadhar, the initial aadhar say papers the two things that it says yeah it
says PDS and NREGA, the rural employment guarantee act that scheme a lot of leakages in these
two schemes yeah that is a drain on the state exchequer and through a robust way of digital
identification, will take care of they do not I do not think this say all, but the sense
that you get by reading those two three page documents which were which were very strong
in terms of or which were used to make a legitimate case for pumping in a lot of public money
into a scheme like aadhar. The premise was that it will take care of, it will pay for
itself by plugging in the problems that schemes like PDS and NREGA have yeah.
So, yeah sorry any anyone following the debate what is happening? What is how is aadhar being
used in PDS? Largely this yeah. So, this is what they are trying to do, 1 and 3 not this,
1 and 3 and and and this is what happened here also yeah. It started with 1, 2 and 3
yeah, the focus on one and three remain this lost out yeah while this was a part of the
original design nothing much happened with 2 yeah, most of the focus was on 1 and 3 yeah
ensuring that the database is weeded out of inclusion errors yeah and ensuring that at
the front end when you have to say give those grains there is a proper authentication that
is carried out yeah. So, in terms of PDS and digital technologies
more or less most of the states are moving towards, moving towards a similar design
what they have done is replaced a local database in this case with a authentic authentication
database provided by aadhar, yeah. Now, given that what do you feel happens to all those
issues and what do you feel happens to this .
So, the technology that is right now the these
are the concerns with PDS yeah, these are the concerns with PDS as we some of the concerns
with PDS. The technology design in case of Karnataka the ahara project was like this
yeah, there are 3 important elements, one was to ensure that you had a database which
was weeded out of bogus duplicate entries yeah and you use that when you were releasing
the food grains to the beneficiaries. So, that is on the user side yeah where where
is it. Largely concerned with here, this this interface yeah at the last mile yeah. This
one to is also concerned with yeah. It is not only concerned with this it is concerned
right from 1 2 3 all here. So, given this and given where we are in terms of use of
aadhar in PDS, what do you think the states sees as a big concern in terms of a scheme
like PDS? First of all is the .
The states see is these two as the biggest concern yeah, the state does not see those
as concerns or those as bigger concerns at least in terms of its choice of technology
design yeah. When it says that we are going to ensure that the problems of PDS will be
plugged, it feels that this is where the problems are yeah. It does not feel that problems could
exist elsewhere yeah and some of those problems did not only be at this level yeah, unless
you are able to may not be under this persons control all the time yeah. If this person
gets a poor quality grain from the higher godowns how can he or she leverage digital
technologies to question the food corporation of India that the grain that you are giving
to me is not good. Sir take whatever the questions which is
. Like because there should be a concerned right from the supplier, supplier side I say
should be concerned about the how much it should supply probably they can be time
they do not have the inner supplies and they know like requirement is this much and (Refer
Time: 13 :25). Fortunately that is not the case.
Yes, sir. They are oh they flooded with supplies. So,
we still not reach the position where the FCI godowns have a run out of food grains.
Sir, and if it is safe to or the states much more the occupying concerned with inclusion
errors than errors in terms of it. So, where it is understand technology and so on.
Yes, that that is what I also feel yeah, that is what I also feel that what it is. So, given
this what it tells us about not the state not only the state, but also the way technologies
are being invoked in a program like this is it still to humanitarian and welfare focused
yeah and yes. the problem face like eligible consoles are
refer and its . So, all these schemes while they target the inclusion errors mainly they
also in a very covered problem for exclusion error .
That is being done through the through Adam Smith invisible hand yeah. How is it being
done? The argument that is being invoked is that if you have lesser inclusion errors,
you will have more food grains to be supplied to those who needed.
But you said supplier is not an issue. So, right now there is no evidence to suggest
that we are running short on supplies, but this is the argument that is invoke yeah,
to say that we should focus on inclusion errors because if we are able to weed out say 20
percent of the ineligible ration cards and assuming that the food grains are getting
into those 20 percent households we will at least open up space for 20 percent more eligible
households to part take of or participate in this scheme yeah.
So, what I am trying to come to is that the, that the design logic yeah at or the governance
logic that is being invoked in a technology design like this yeah is yes inclusion errors.
Inclusion errors to ensure that these inefficiencies at this level are taken care of without a
lot of inefficiencies at higher levels of the state machinery being considered. One
is the higher levels of the state is not considered inefficient. When you say that is the state
is inefficient the state at the lower levels is inefficient yeah, it is not the minister
sitting in Delhi, it is not the secretary sitting in Delhi, it is not anyone in Bangalore
yeah. The village in Tumkur, the fair price shop owner in Tumkur, the people who live
in Tumkur they are corrupt they are inefficient they engage in un-ethical behaviour yeah.
So, that is what this perspective of technology design is trying to propagate yeah.
I just want to add one thing I mean just . So, what will happened when the
foods it was parliament when argument was that was not happy in the details how
much food grains they have on the real time basis. So, it was a .
Yes, correct. Yeah.
And therefore, you need that yeah therefore, you needs. So, who was concerned?
Phase one, I mean . FCI.
FCI, phase one. Did anyone ask them anything yeah when this
was designed who were consulted? Them, where the secretary sitting in Delhi yeah.
In many cases they were not consulted and the design came out in a manner as it has
and it is and because of certain or because of the logic embedded into that kind of design
it can do certain things it can probably not do a few things ok.
question. Yes.
You need it in that structure . We may not.
In yesterday . We may not or why do we need FCI at all yeah
at that level why do we need the wheat, grown in Punjab to be consumed by a household in
Mandya who has never seen wheat in his or her life yeah. They have consumed ragi they
have consume something else why should the excess wheat of Punjab or some other northern
states we pushed to change the enter food behaviour of a contact of a of a household
in say Karnataka or Kerala or Andhra Pradesh yeah.
So, again that is another area of concern that we should look at. Again that is something
that is a exclusion error. I do not eat wheat and you are trying to give me wheat what will
I do with that wheat yeah. So, that is another error which is not on the radar of the of
the state at this point in time to certain extent it is because they certain states like
Karnataka has started say incorporating ragi and jowar and some of these minor
millet us into the say PDS system yeah. But at say national level this is not a
big concern and therefore, our choice of technology does not have anything to do with this yeah.
If we had these things yeah if we had these as greater concerns we may not need UID yeah,
UID has if if you go through the initial documents the legitimacy of UID comes from PDS and NREGA.
Yes. And this is what it is doing to PDS and NREGA.
Let us looking at this to certain extent, if these are concerns and if these are concerns
of an equally important magnitude you do not need a technology design like a universal
identity, that is not to bigger concern. Sir, in biometric control transactions
your third part is not is coming machine that we talked about is it same across I mean
wherever this is being implemented. So, this same not just in Karnataka was just let say
a Jarkhand, Chattisghad. Yes, specification should be same.
Ok, probably if because if your authentication process is divorced from maintained which
indicates quantity and other then . Yes. So, so it is not like this. So, so interestingly
in Karnataka this is what they started with here, then they did away with this they removed
this. They said will do the authentication and will do the weighing separately we will
not link both of them yeah. So, there are certain probably they able to figure out
who are the kind of people who would benefit from something like this yeah. But I think
what my take away from this example is that there is a scheme yeah scheme that
the government formulates with certain say governance objectives in mind yeah, when it
comes to designing technologies we have we can exercise a choice there is nothing very
deterministic in the way technology can be designed or should be design yeah. As designers
of technology or as designers of any of these government program is a lot of choice that
is exercised yeah. So, that is one of the takeaways and then let let us move on and
then we can come back to this discussion. So, at say outcome impact level if you
look at malnutrition if you look at hunger not much difference there. The second project
that this is slightly dated kind of field work, but I will still I talk about this
is agricultural land records yeah. And this project which was done in Karnataka
in the late 90s and again this derived from a national mandate on reforming land records
across the country It was done simultaneously in a few states, Karnataka was the pioneer
this is a much awarded project not only in India , but across the world not only even,
even world bank. So, all sorts of organizations that are significant in the world today
have looked at this and field that this is a good way of using technology in governance
yeah. So, what does this do? Are you aware of
land records anyone has anyone has engaged or any direct contact with agriculture farming,
none of you ok. So, what happens, in a lot of see rural areas there is a you have
a records for the land that you own and this the way farming happens it requires
a lot it requires credit for farmers because a lot of investment needs to be sunken right
towards the beginning of the sowing period and you get start getting returns only after
4 to 6 months once you have harvest at the crop and have sold it in the market yeah and
then you get. So, you have to rely on that short term 6 month credit for your working
capital yeah. Now for the smaller farmers and most of
the agricultural land holdings in India are which small and marginal farmers. So, small
farmers are those who have land holding of less than 2 hectares, 2 hectares marginal
have less than one hectare. So, most all almost three-fourths of the land, agricultural
land in the country is for maybe more is held by small and marginal farmers. Most of
the small and marginal farmers they are also low income households yeah. So, they do not
have a surplus which they can invoke for their working capital during farming yeah. So, they
depend on credit and that for carrying out their farming activities.
Now, this is a record, this record of rights tenancy and crops which says which which gives
a snapshot of their land parcel. It say this is extent of land this is irrigated
by this canal or this is this has a bore well and this is a kind of irrigation facilities
available this is the crops that have been grown, that are being grown in this land,
this is a kind of yields that have happened and these are the liance on this land. So,
this farmer has taken a loan by mortgaging this land of this amount, so it it it more
or less carriage a snapshot. And in case of India RDI, Nabard and the
government what they say is for small magnitude crop loans up to 50,000 now having a RTC should
be enough yeah, you do not need a collateral, the farmers need not more mortgage the land
yeah having a valid RTC without any encumbrances yeah should be good enough for a farmer to
access formal sector credit yeah. So, this is what the source of this project
is trying to, so there assumption behind the project design was that the way in which
these records were maintained earlier it was done at the in every village there is a person
called village accountant who is in the revenue administration in the closest to the farming
household yeah. The village accountant would maintain the record of this rights tenancy
in crops in his or her register it is moon mainly his register and whenever a farmer
required and extract of that record the former would go to the village accountant
in the village accountant would on a piece of paper give all those details. And then
that document is what the farmer would take to a bank yeah to access any credit that the
bank had to provide. Now, you could see that the so many village
accountants yeah across the country. There could be so many different ways in which they
would maintain the records and they would put it on a piece of paper yeah. So, lot of,
so it was not a uniform piece of paper that all you had all these fields written in this
way in this font with the spacing all that yeah. So, different village accountant depending
on what was the practice in their area would provide these records in different ways yeah.
Sometimes it was also difficult to ascertain whether the record has been provided by a
valid village accountant or not yeah because you you may not have a stamp, you would not
know that this is the village accountant because there was no registry to say this is the village
accountant this is his or her signature and therefore, this is how you can match that
yeah. So, because of that and then the other assumption
was that the village accountant would engage in extortionary practices when farmers approach
them for this extract yeah. So, in many cases they were assume not to be present in the
village, difficult to access by the farmers yeah and I am saying assumed with underline
yeah, difficult to access by the farmers yeah and and whenever the farmer had to get an
extract he or she would have to pay some something extra to the village accountant to get that
extract yeah. So, at one level there was this this corruption charge on the village
accountant the extortion that the rent seeking behaviour that the village accountant was
expected to engage in because he had to constantly interact with the farmers yeah.
On the other hand the banks had an had had an issue in terms of validating whether
the extract has come from from authentic source or not yeah. So, these were largely
the concerns that at that point in time the state felt and the various agencies of
the state felt was restricting formal credit. Going into the agricultural sector going into
the agricultural sector which was of relevance to the small and marginal farmers yeah because
the most to the small and marginal farmers would not take say loans for buying a tractor
yeah they would take crop loans yeah which was less than 50,000 yeah. And at that point
in time it was believed that all because of this you still have a lot of money lenders
in practice and money lenders charge say interest rate 36 percent per annum etcetera
and that leads to further discuss for the farmers.
So, there was a, so there was a welfare livelihood kind of logic that was invoked. There was
another thing of leakages corruption being engaged by the village accountant yeah being
invoked and with all that this was attempted that. What will do is will computerised all
this land records yeah. So, there some 20 fields, 25 fields. Again
what was not considered was that land records have a have a strong historical say
linkage. In India, in Karnataka for example, they there are different areas and which have
followed different types of land administration systems. For example, the old Mysore state
yeah part where we are all in went into a present based record system pretty early
you are doing the Wadeyas it went into a record system where presents were given by the cultivators
that iths were given the land record. The Hyderabad, Karnataka area the Raichur, the
Koppal there the zamindari system continued for a long time, for a long time it was ten
and cultivation that was practice yeah. So, I own land, but I would get it cultivated
by your tenant because land ownership was concentrated in a few casts yeah. In the old
Mysore state and that has been across the country, land ownership is not only does not
only have a economic what did not only have a economic kind of basis it was a
indicator of your social status yeah. So, unless you are a Brahmin or unless you were
one of those cause you could not own land yeah. But if you were of that caste you would
definitely not do physical work yeah. So, you have to engage some on to do that work.
So, a lot of teen and cultivation was practiced, continued to practice in the Hyderabad,
Karnataka region. In the old Mysore state the ownership of land
passed onto the teen ends pretty early yeah. So, they are different variants in the whale
and administration has been practiced in different parts of the state in the country because
of that what is a valid record or what is that should be should go into an into something
like a RTC was different in different regions yeah. So, there are at that time someone
figured out that the more 105; there was more than 500-600 different formats in which RTC
is well being produced yeah. And some of it had genuine linkages with the kind of
say lad and land administration system that existed.
Now, all of that one was a rationalized into one set yeah. So, from a 500 format if you
have to get into one format, you have to exercise choice yeah. What are some, what could be
some of the drivers of that choice. Again your power relations, if you have more powerful
yeah you will ensure that the fields that matter more to you get into that formats.
So, again that is a political exercise going on at the time of that database design itself
yeah. So, that happened. So, this project what is
this what I tried to do was tried to rationalize all those 500 formats into one yeah and then
said that ok now we will have a uniform data base, this is these are the 20 fields or 25
fields that will capture that will consider are valid yeah. And then what we will do is
will remove the village accountants from the entire chain because they are the most corrupt
and what will do is will push this to a to this. So, will remove the village accountant,
we will replace the village accountant by a computer which is sitting in the Taluk headquarters
operated by a data entry operator, once you have all that record you can go apply for
RTC and then you stand in a line get an RTC without any anyone say exerting unnecessary
influence on you an[any]-any anyone seeking rent out of you yeah. So, that is what
this project was about. And again something like this has been
is being replicated across the country. So, agricultural land records with the motive
of enabling more and more formal sector credit is being computerized yeah, digital technologies
are being used there and the again the design logic that is being invoked is just as in
the case of the fair price shop owners, the inefficiency lies at the grassroots, the village
accountants are to be removed from the process are to be monitored, and therefore, you will
bring and digital technologies to replace or substitute for the villages accountants.
Now, these are the two places that my findings, and this is what I I was referring to. I will
not get into a lot of details maybe I will refer you to the paper here , you can
look at that. But broadly the findings are because of a
design like that the gains and this is only in to districts of Karnataka that I have study.
The gains were not uniform yeah because the people who are using it they come with different
and a say capacities, endowments all that yeah. So, at least what I found I conducted
some 200 or interviews across 20 villages in both these districts and what I found
was that the bigger farmers in Mandya and irrigated areas of Koppal yeah, Koppal is
a rather a dry area, Manday is a more irrigated area is just downstream of this of the KRS
dam yeah. So, the bigger farmers in Mandya and the bigger
farmers in irrigated areas of Koppal they gained . So, they were better off after the
computerization than they were before. The bigger farmers in dry areas of Koppal, the
smaller farmers in irrigated areas of Mandya yeah. So, these were the three groups broadly
which I found gained or had a positive differences to to their incomes and to
the way they were interacting with the state and former credit organizations. Who did
not gain? The tenant farmers in Koppal, yeah. Though tenancy is illegal it is still practiced
whitesp [widespread] in a widespread manner in a place like Koppal. So, they did not gain.
The smaller farmers in dry areas of Koppal and Manday did not gain yeah and then to put
that into perspective less than 40 percent of the total sown area is irrigated in Mandya
yeah, for Koppal it is less than 25 percent, for Karnataka this figure is around 20 percent
that is roughly what it is for India not not lot of difference. So, Karnataka that way
is a median state yeah. The small and marginal holdings constituted about three fourths of
the entire yeah. So, that is what that design had has implications
on some of these groups. I will I will go up bit fast we can come back to this if you
want, yeah. The third one and I will cover this quickly
is the property registration project that Madam was talking about yeah. So, again this
is something that has been going in on in Karnataka for the last 15 years yeah, but
you have similar variants in Maharashtra, in Andhra Pradesh and various other states
that are trying to immolate something like this yeah What happens is whenever there
is a transaction whenever there is a transaction of property yeah immovable property, and you
want a legal sanction or you want that transaction to be considered in a court of law at a later
date you have to get it registered in one of the sub registrar offices of the state.
And by doing that the state; what is the state say saying? The state is saying that
I am witness to this transaction that is the only thing that the state says when you go
and get your say transaction document register. And because the state is witness to the transaction
in a court of law if there is any dispute that occurs because of the transactions you
can you can you can produce that document, yeah. In fact, a lot of other documents also
need to be registered marriage documents have to b[be] or marriage has to be registered,
will has to be registered in a returns all of that has to be registered and the state
bears witness it does not guarantee anything. That does not comment on what is inside that
agreement that is between the transacting parties.
So, the owners of when when you engage into a say immovable property registration the
owners of finding the legality of the transaction is on the buyers and the sellers. The state
does not bear witness or or does not guarantee that. In India we have a system of land titling
or property titling which is in conclusive, yeah; it is so the state does not say. So,
even if I own a piece of land it is a prism tip titling.
So, it is not conclusive. So, none of our properties are conclusive titles yeah. State
has not said that yes you are the owner of this piece of land. What does the states say?
I have, I am witness to the transaction between you as a buyer and you as a seller. In a different
context what does the state say? I am providing this water service for this electricity service
to your property and for that I am collecting tax. I am providing civic facilities to this
area and for that I am collecting tax from you as residing in that property. So, none
of our state transactions which deal with property the state says that you are the owner
of this property, yeah