Biometric data theft was exposed by RTI activist

SURAT: 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.