Face authentication to be made mandatory for Anganwadi beneficiaries

New Delhi: The women and child development ministry has directed all states and Union territories to implement mandatory face recognition system for take-home ration distribution and child attendance monitoring at Anganwadi centres.

According to a letter issued by the ministry last month, the face recognition feature will now be accessible within the beneficiary profiles on the Poshan tracker application.

Beneficiaries will also have the option to self-register using the citizen module of the tracker for e-KYC and photo capture.

From July 1, marking attendance and recording hot cooked meal consumption for children aged 3-6 years will be compulsory across Anganwadi centres.

The same date marks the beginning of mandatory face recognition-based authentication for take-home ration distribution.

The move aims to ensure last-mile delivery and plugging leakages in the system.

The ministry has also said that from August 1, face recognition will be made mandatory at the time of new beneficiary registration.

For pregnant women, lactating mothers and adolescent girls, e-KYC and facial recognition via Aadhaar will be a prerequisite.

In the case of children aged 0-6 years, the Aadhaar number of a parent or guardian will be required.

For children in the 3-6 year age bracket, a photograph will be captured using liveliness detection, which will later be used during service delivery, according to the letter.

Children transitioning from the 0-3 year group to the older category will also have to update their photographs accordingly.

The ministry has urged state officials and field functionaries to facilitate beneficiary onboarding and encourage updating of Aadhaar-linked mobile numbers and photographs to ensure seamless authentication.

The directive follows earlier communications from the ministry dated November 12, 2024, and March 5, 2025, which had outlined phased implementation of the face authentication module under the POSHAN tracker system.

In the letter of March 5, the ministry had asked states to instruct the officers and field functionaries concerned in these projects for on-boarding the registered beneficiaries in a campaign mode and to ensure 100 per cent on-boarding of registered beneficiaries in all the projects by March 25.

"This is also to bring to your notice that the ministry is considering revision in cost norms as announced in the Budget speech of the finance minister on February 1, 2025 and benefit of the same will be linked to the actual implementation of face recognition system by states/UTs," the earlier letter had said.