In a first-of-its-kind measure, the Karnataka government is planning to introduce face recognition as another method of authentication to recognise beneficiaries of PDS ration or pension, with officials hoping that the new tool will help in weeding out fake beneficiaries.
The department of e-governance had recently conducted a pilot project in Mandya to identify any loopholes in the system and has been challenge-testing the software to ensure those with criminal intent can't take advantage of the system.
Rajeev Chawla, Additional Chief Secretary, DPAR (e-Governance), said the new system was planned to help monthly pensioners as well as those who get ration under PDS to secure services without any hiccups while tackling the scourge of fake beneficiaries.
"The Union government permitted us to conduct the pilot and the Unique Identification Authority of India is looking into the development of the software. We have identified some of the issues in our study. It may take about four to five months for the project to take off," he said.
Officials said 66.4 lakh people in Karnataka get pension under different schemes while the total number of PDS beneficiaries, including those above poverty line, is pegged at about 4 crore.
According to department estimates, about 1% to 2% of people may experience problems with fingerprint authentication. However, Chawla said the real challenge was the poor network quality.
The pilot project involving the face recognition system in Mandya involved about 100 farmers, women and old-age pension beneficiaries. "This authentication doesn't need a fingerprint or iris scanner," said Chawla. "The mobile app uses the device camera and verifies whether the image it is catching is a real beneficiary or his/her photo. It will prompt the beneficiary to blink or do other actions. Once the system is convinced, the beneficiary's eligibility is renewed."
Apart from the districts in the Western Ghats region, there are several districts with poor data connectivity in rural areas, which makes authentication hard.
The department hopes that the software will also put an end to the identity theft. An official said both fingerprints and the recently introduced one-time-password method can be cheated. "While iris scan helps, it requires a costly device. We hope the facial recognition will be a win-win situation for the people as well as the department," an official said.
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