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Subject: Governance

Important aspects of Society

  • PCPNDT Act and rule changes during pandemic

    The article deals with the issues of suspension of some requirements under PCPNDT Act. It also discusses the role judiciary played in 25-years jurisprudence around the Act.

    Context

    • Last week, the Supreme Court deferred a pronouncement on the legality of the Centre’s now-lapsed controversial notification relating to the rules of the law banning sex-selective abortions.
    • The apex court similarly erred on the side of caution in June, choosing not to stay the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s gazette notification.

    What were the changes

    • One of the rules requires a five-yearly renewal of registration of genetic laboratories, ultrasound clinics and imaging centres, subject to the fulfilment of eligibility criteria.
    • Another mandate to submit monthly records on the conduct of pregnancy-related procedures to the designated authority.
    • State governments and Union Territories are required to furnish quarterly reports to the Centre on the implementation of the law.
    • The Union Health Ministry had maintained that various procedural deadlines were relaxed in the wake of the public health crisis and that such flexibility would in no way jeopardise the larger objectives of the law.

    Issues with the suspension

    • Activists saw no rationale behind the suspension of rules, since the operation of diagnostic laboratories had been declared essential services.
    • They were understandably apprehensive that the freeze would result in large-scale violations.
    • It is one thing to offer relaxation for delays in the completion of formalities via an administrative order, but altogether another to declare a freeze via a gazette notification, they argued.

    Court judgements on PCPNDT Act

    • The 25-year jurisprudence around the PCPNDT legislation does not justify a casual approach on the enforcement of its various provisions.
    • The Court last year ruled that the non-maintenance of medical records as per Section 23 of the PCPNDT Act could serve as a conduit in the grave offence of foeticide.
    • In its 2016 judgment, the Supreme Court authorised the seizure of illegal equipment from clinics and the suspension of their registration as well as speedy disposal of relevant cases by the States.

    Consider the question “How far has the PCPNDT Act been successful in dealing with the menace of sex-selective abortion? What are the shortcomings in the Act?”

    Conclusion

    Crucially, the alarming decline witnessed in recent decades in India’s sex ratio at birth calls for uncompromising adherence to public policy, more than is evident from evolving case law.

  • Resurrecting the right to know

    This article analyses the importance of peoples’ right to know and instrumental role judiciary played in harmonising it with the Official Secrets Act 1923.

    Context

    • A High Level Committee (HLC) chaired by a retired judge of the Gauhati High Court was constituted by the Home Ministry through a gazette notification.
    • Its mandate was, among others, to recommend measures to implement Clause 6 of the Assam Accord and define “Assamese People”.
    • The HLC finalised its report by mid-February 2020 and submitted it to the Assam Chief Minister and through him to the Central government.
    • With the Central government apparently “sitting idle” over the report, the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), which was represented in the HLC, released the report.

    The right to know

    • The right to know was recognised nearly 50 years ago and is the foundational basis or the direct emanation for the right to information.
    • In State of U.P. v. Raj Narain (1975), the Supreme Court carved out a class of documents that demand protection even though their contents may not be damaging to the national interest.
    • Court held that “the people of this country are entitled to know the particulars of every public transaction in all its bearing”.
    • This view was endorsed in S.P. Gupta v. President of India (1981) and a few other decisions.
    • In Yashwant Sinha v. Central Bureau of Investigation (2019), the Supreme Court referred to the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in New York Times v. United States (1971) wherein court declined to recognise the right of the government to restrain publication of the Pentagon Papers.
    • Our Supreme Court held that a review petition based on three documents published by The Hindu was maintainable since the provisions of the Official Secrets Act, 1923 had not been violated.
    • The SC held that there is no provision by which Parliament had vested power in the government either to restrain the publication of documents marked as secret or from placing such documents before a court.
    • Section 8(2) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 provides that a citizen can get a certified copy of a document even if the matter pertains to security or relationship with a foreign nation if a case is made out.
    • Therefore, it is clear that the right to know can be curtailed only in limited circumstances and if there is an overriding public interest.

    Consider the question “Analyse the importance of citizens’ right to know and how the judiciary harmonised the peoples right to know with the Official Secrets Act 1923? “

    Conclusion

    We must keep in mind observation made by the Supreme Court in S.P. Gupta: “If secrecy were to be observed in the functioning of government and the processes of government were to be kept hidden from public scrutiny, it would tend to promote and encourage oppression, corruption and misuse or abuse of authority, for it would all be shrouded in the veil of secrecy without any public accountability.”

    B2BASICS

    Official secrets act

    • OSA has its roots in the British colonial era and was originally known as The Indian Official Secrets Act (Act XIV), 1889.
    • The act was primarily mandated to gag the voice of a large number of newspapers that came up in several languages, and were opposing the Raj’s policies, building political consciousness and facing police crackdowns and prison terms.
    • The act was amended and made more stringent in the form of The Indian Official Secrets Act, 1904, during Lord Curzon’s tenure as Viceroy of India.
    • In 1923, a newer version was notified. The Indian Official Secrets Act (Act No XIX of 1923) was extended to all matters of secrecy and confidentiality in governance in the country.
    • It was further amended after India got independence in 1951 and 1967. The act in its present form deals with two aspects — spying or espionage and disclosure of other secret information of the government.
    • Secret information can be any official code, password, sketch, plan, model, article, note, document or information. Under the act both the person communicating the information, and the person receiving the information, can be punished.

  • Debate: Minimum age of marriage for women

    PM in his I-Day speech has announced that the central government has set up a committee to reconsider the minimum age of marriage for women during his address to the nation on the 74th Independence Day.

    Try this question for mains:

    Q.The different minimum age of marriage for women and men is a discriminatory provision. Analyse.

    Back in debate

    • The minimum age of marriage, especially for women, has been a contentious issue.
    • The law evolved in the face of much resistance from religious and social conservatives.
    • Currently, the law prescribes that the minimum age of marriage is 21 years and 18 years for men and women respectively.

    Issue over majority

    • The minimum age of marriage is distinct from the age of majority which is gender-neutral.
    • An individual attains the age of majority at 18 as per the Indian Majority Act, 1875.
    • The law prescribes a minimum age of marriage to essentially outlaw child marriages and prevents the abuse of minors.

    What is the committee that the PM mentioned?

    • The Union Ministry for WCD had set up a task force to examine matters pertaining to the age of motherhood, imperatives of lowering Maternal Mortality Ratio and the improvement of nutritional levels among women.
    • The task force would examine the correlation of age of marriage and motherhood with health, medical well-being, and nutritional status of the mother and neonate, infant or child, during pregnancy, birth and thereafter.
    • It will also examine the possibility of increasing the age of marriage for women from the present 18 years to 21 years.

    How common are child marriages in India?

    • UNICEF estimates suggest that each year, at least 1.5 million girls under the age of 18 are married in India.
    • It makes our country home to the largest number of child brides in the world — accounting for a third of the global total.
    • Nearly 16 per cent adolescent girls aged 15-19 are currently married.

    Provisions for the minimum age for marriage

    • Personal laws of various religions that deal with marriage have their own standards, often reflecting custom.
    • For Hindus, Section 5(iii) of The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, sets 18 years as the minimum age for the bride and 21 years as the minimum age for the groom.
    • However, child marriages are not illegal — even though they can be declared void at the request of the minor in the marriage.
    • In Islam, the marriage of a minor who has attained puberty is considered valid.
    • The Special Marriage Act, 1954 and the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 also prescribe 18 and 21 years as the minimum age of consent for marriage for women and men respectively.
    • Additionally, sexual intercourse with a minor is rape, and the ‘consent’ of a minor is regarded as invalid since she is deemed incapable of giving consent at that age.

    Evolution of the law

    • The IPC enacted in 1860 criminalised sexual intercourse with a girl below the age of 10.
    • The provision of rape was amended in 1927 through The Age of Consent Bill, 1927, which declared that marriage with a girl under 12 would be invalid.
    • The law faced opposition from conservative leaders of the Indian National Movement, who saw the British intervention as an attack on Hindu customs.
    • A legal framework for the age of consent for marriage in India only began in the 1880s.

    Comes in: The Sarda Act

    • In 1929, The Child Marriage Restraint Act set 16 and 18 years as the minimum age of marriage for girls and boys respectively.
    • The law, popularly known as the Sarda Act after its sponsor Harbilas Sarda, a judge and a member of Arya Samaj, was eventually amended in 1978 to prescribe 18 and 21 years as the age of marriage for a woman and a man respectively.

    Contention over different legal standards

    • There is no reasoning in the law for having different legal standards of age for men and women to marry. The laws are a codification of custom and religious practices.
    • The Law Commission consultation paper has argued that having different legal standards “contributes to the stereotype that wives must be younger than their husbands”.
    • Women’s rights activists have argued that the law also perpetuates the stereotype that women are more mature than men of the same age and, therefore, can be allowed to marry sooner.
    • The international treaty Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), also calls for the abolition of laws that assume women have a different physical or intellectual rate of growth than men.

    Why is the law being relooked at?

    • Despite laws mandating minimum age and criminalizing sexual intercourse with a minor, child marriages are very prevalent in the country.
    • From bringing in gender-neutrality to reduce the risks of early pregnancy among women, there are many arguments in favour of increasing the minimum age of marriage of women.
    • Early pregnancy is associated with increased child mortality rates and affects the health of the mother.

    Upholding the Constitution

    • Petitioners, in this case, had challenged the law on the grounds of discrimination.
    • It is argued that Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution, which guarantee the right to equality and the right to live with dignity, were violated by having different legal ages for men and women to marry.
    • Two significant Supreme Court rulings can act as precedents to support the petitioner’s claim.
    • In 2014, in the ‘NALSA v Union of India’ case, the Supreme Court, while recognising transgenders as the third gender, said that justice is delivered with the “assumption that humans have equal value and should, therefore, be treated as equal, as well as by equal laws”.
    • In 2019, in ‘Joseph Shine v Union of India’, the Supreme Court decriminalized adultery, and said that “a law that treats women differently based on gender stereotypes is an affront to women’s dignity”.

  • What is the National Health ID System?

    In his address to the nation on Independence Day, the PM has launched the National Digital Health Mission which rolls out a national health ID for every Indian.

    Try this question for mains:

    Q.What is the National Health ID System? How will it benefit transforming healthcare facilities in India?

    National Health ID System

    • This system finds its roots in a 2018 NITI Aayog proposal to create a centralised mechanism to uniquely identify every participating user in the National Health Stack.
    • It will be a repository of all health-related information of a person.
    • According to the National Health Authority (NHA), every patient who wishes to have their health records available digitally must start by creating a Health ID.
    • Each Health ID will be linked to a health data consent manager — such as National Digital Health Mission (NDHM).
    • The Health ID is created by using a person’s basic details and mobile number or Aadhaar number.
    • This will make it unique to the person, who will have the option to link all of their health records to this ID.

    What was the original proposal for the health ID?

    • The National Health Policy 2017 had envisaged creation of a digital health technology eco-system aiming at developing an integrated health information system.
    • In the context of this, the central government’s think-tank NITI Aayog, in June 2018, floated a consultation of a digital backbone for India’s health system — National Health Stack.
    • As part of its consultation, NITI Aayog proposed a Digital Health ID to greatly reduce the risk of preventable medical errors and significantly increase the quality of care.

    Stakeholders in the national health ID

    • As envisaged, various healthcare providers — such as hospitals, laboratories, insurance companies, online pharmacies, telemedicine firms — will be expected to participate in the health ID system.

    Back2Basics:

    https://www.civilsdaily.com/news/national-digital-health-mission-ndhm/

  • Census 2021 and the long-pending reforms

    • In all likelihood, the February 2021 Census will have to be rescheduled to ensure comparability with earlier censuses.
    • This will also affect the National Sample Surveys and others that use the census as the sampling frame.
    • The delay can, however, be used to introduce much-needed reforms to this gigantic exercise whose roots go back to the late 19th century.

    Try this question for mains:

    Q.The Census of India needs a basic overhaul beyond its procedural digitization. Critically analyse.

    Background: Census of India

    • The decennial Census of India has been conducted 15 times, as of 2011.
    • While it has been undertaken every 10 years, beginning in 1872 under British Viceroy Lord Mayo, the first complete census was taken in 1881.
    • Post-1949, it has been conducted by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India under the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India.
    • All the censuses since 1951 were conducted under the 1948 Census of India Act.
    • The last census was held in 2011, whilst the next will be held in 2021.

    Census 2021

    • The Census 2021 will be conducted in 18 languages out of the 22 scheduled languages (under 8th schedule) and English, while Census 2011 was in 16 of the 22 scheduled languages declared at that time.
    • It also will introduce a code directory to streamline the process
    • The option of “Other” under the gender category will be changed to “Third Gender”.
    • There were roughly 5 lakh people under “other” category in 2011.
    • For the first time in the 140 year history of the census in India, data is proposed to be collected through a mobile app by enumerators and they will receive an additional payment as an incentive.
    • The Census data would be available by the year 2024-25 as the entire process would be conducted digitally and data crunching would be quicker.

    Issues with the Census

    (1) Data quality issues

    • The past four decades have seen a decline in the quality of data and growing delays in its release despite technological innovations.
    • The use of census data in delimitation and federal redistribution has been questioned on grounds of poor quality, while the Covid-19 pandemic revealed the obsolete and poor quality of data on internal migration.

    (2) No major reforms

    • The legal foundation of the census has remained largely unchanged since newly independent India enacted permanent census legislation in 1948.
    • Despite sustained problems, the census has not seen any major reform after 1994 when both the Census Act, 1948 and Census Rules, 1990 were amended.

    (3) Old methods and questionnaire

    • The methodological core – extended de facto (synchronous) canvasser-based enumeration – too has remained intact even though the length and layout of schedules changed quite a bit.
    • The Household Schedule, for instance, grew with the footprint of the state, from 14 questions in 1951 to 29 questions in 2011.

    (4) Workforce issues

    • Data collection has not kept pace with improvements in data processing technology due to the lack of motivated and adequately trained enumerators.
    • Given the high salaries of school teachers, the modest honorarium paid for census work does not cover the opportunity cost of conducting the door-to-door enumeration.

    Understand the ‘purpose’ of the census

    Reforms should begin with the design of schedules based on a clear understanding of two essential functions of the census:

    (a) Resource allocations

    • First, census facilitates the rule-based distribution of power and resources through constitutionally mandated redistribution of taxes, delimitation of electoral constituencies and affirmative action policies.
    • It is also used in routine policy-making across tiers of government.

    (b) Population projections

    • Second, census serves as the sampling frame for surveys and is also the basis of population projections.
    • Other routine policies require distribution of the headcount by households, marital status, age, sex, literacy, migrant status, and mother tongue.
    • Put together, these variables are sufficient for choosing representative samples for surveys.

    What can be done?

    1.Cut the questions

    • Nearly half of the ‘Houselisting and Housing Schedule’ of the census is devoted to questions on household amenities and assets.
    • These questions can be dropped because the information can be more appropriately collected through sample surveys and administrative statistics.

    Why put fewer questions?

    • Cutting down the length of unwieldy schedules has several advantages.
    • First, it will improve data quality by reducing the workload of enumerators.
    • Second, it will also free up senior census officials and help revive the earlier tradition of producing detailed administrative and other reports crucial for understanding the context of data.
    • Third, shorter schedules will seem less invasive and assure respondents uncomfortable with sharing too many details.
    • Fourth, it will cut down processing time and help in reducing delays in the release of data.

    2.Dealing with data manipulation

    • There is poor accounting of migrants that distorts estimates of urbanisation as well as the inter-state distribution of the population.
    • There exists grassroots manipulation of data-driven by political and economic considerations.
    • There is a need to demystify census operations and build trust in the impartiality of the exercise, better scrutiny of electoral records and welfare schemes to weed out bogus beneficiaries.

    Conclusion

    • These reforms are essential to ensure that the census exercise is able to fulfil its constitutional, policy and statistical obligations and also clear the ground for debates on the future of census in the digital era.

  • Making sense of population growth of India

    The article analyses and explains the declining trend in India’s total fertility rate. The aspirational revolution in the parents explains such decline. 

    What the projections say

    • A new study was published in The Lancet, and prepared by the Seattle-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).
    • It argues that while India is destined to be the largest country in the world, its population will peak by mid-century.
    • And as the 21st century closes, its ultimate population will be far smaller than anyone could have anticipated, about 1.09 billion instead of approximately 1.35 billion today.
    • It could even be as low as 724 million, the study projects.
    • Until 2050, the IHME projections are almost identical to widely-used United Nations projections.
    •  It is only in the second half of the century that the two projections diverge with the UN predicting a population of 1.45 billion by 2100, and the IHME, 1.09 billion.

    Present trends in India’s fertility rate

    •  In the 1950s, India’s Total fertility rate (TFR) was nearly six children per woman; today it is 2.2.
    •  Between 1992 and 2015, it had fallen by 35% from 3.4 to 2.2.
    • It is even below the replacement rate in 18 States and Union Territories.

    What explains the trends

    • One might attribute it to the success of the family planning programme.
    • But family planning has long lost its primacy in the Indian policy discourse.
    • Punitive policies include denial of maternity leave for third and subsequent births, limiting benefits of maternity schemes and ineligibility to contest in local body elections for individuals with large families.
    • However, these policies are mostly ignored in practice.

    Aspirational revolution

    •  It seems highly probable that the socioeconomic transformation of India since the 1990s has played an important role.
    • Over the years parents began to rethink their family-building strategies.
    • Smaller families when compared with a bigger family with same income level, invest more money in their children by sending them to private schools and coaching classes.
    • It is not aspirations for self but that for children that seems to drive fertility decline.

    Consider the question “Examine the factors responsible for the declining trends in the total fertility rate for India. What are its implications for country?”

    Conclusion

    Demographic data suggest that the aspirational revolution is already under way. What we need to hasten the fertility decline is to ensure that the health and family welfare system is up to this challenge and provides contraception and sexual and reproductive health services that allow individuals to have only as many children as they want.

  • [pib] E-Sanjeevani Tele-Medicine Platform

    1.5 lakh teleconsultations were recently completed on the “eSanjeevani” and “eSanjeevani OPD” tele-medicine.

    Why Telemedicine?

    Telemedicine can increase the efficiency of care delivery, reduce expenses of caring for patients or transporting to another location, and can even keep patients out of the hospital.  

    E-Sanjeevani Platform

    • E-Sanjeevani is a platform-independent, browser-based application facilitating both doctor-to-doctor and patient-to-doctor tele-consultations.
    • It provides the ease of accessing the health records at the comforts of one’s home.
    • The application is based on invite-system which restricts it to the actual beneficiaries of the application.
    • It has a user-friendly interface which facilitates both tech-savvy and novice doctors/users in the rural and urban environment to access the application.
    • This eSanjeevani platform has enabled two types of telemedicine services viz. Doctor-to-Doctor (eSanjeevani) and Patient-to-Doctor (eSanjeevani OPD) Tele-consultations.
    • The former is being implemented under the Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness Centre (AB-HWCs) programme.

    Services included:

    The telemedicine platform hosts speciality OPDs which include:

    • Gynaecology, Psychiatry, Dermatology, ENT, Ophthalmology, antiretroviral therapy (ART) for the AIDS/HIV patients, Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) etc

    With inputs from:

    https://www.cdac.in/index.aspx?id=hi_pr_eSanjeevani

  • Digital realities of India

    Context

    • Google has recently announced a decision to invest $10 billion in India.
    • To put that sum in context, it is over 10 times the money set aside for 100 smart cities and almost 20 times that for Digital India.
    • Purpose of that investment is stated to be digitising India.

    Digital realities of India Google must consider:

    1) Contradictions

    •  India recognises the internet as a human right, and yet, has led the world in internet shutdowns.
    • Its internet speeds can be slow and variable, but its uptake of smartphones is the world’s fastest.
    • It is second only to China in internet users, app downloads and social media users.

    2) Lack of access to internet

    • Only 21 per cent of women are mobile internet users, while the percentage for men is twice that number.
    • There are many societal factors that make it difficult for women and girls to enjoy full digital freedoms.
    • In rural India, where two-thirds of the country lives, just about a quarter of the population has internet access.
    • Differences in digital access mean differences in the quality of education.
    • The gaps are both digital and societal.

    3) Lack of access to banks

    •  India’s workforce is mostly informal.
    • Only 22 per cent of recipients of migrant remittances have access to banks within one km, according to a report by the Centre for Digital Financial Inclusion.
    • A push from Google and its competitors could make payments and financial access more inclusive.

    4) Need for special products for India

    • you mention new products for India’s unique needs, of which there are many.
    • Consider the needs in the agricultural sector alone.
    • Impac of predictive data analytics and basic artificial intelligence into Indian agriculture using readily available technologies would be huge.
    • Precision farming to improve the timing and quantity of seeding, irrigation and fertiliser usage.
    • Helping farmers get credit at lower costs and helping predict commodity prices can create $33 billion in new value annually in Indian agriculture.

    5) Lack of data governance and issues with it

    • Nandan Nilekani has said, India will be data rich before it is “economically rich”.
    • With 650 million internet users, there is a lot of data richness already.
    • But this data richness exists without a forward-looking and inclusive data governance policy.
    • The experience with Aarogya Setu, provided a perfect case study on the discomfort within India because of the absence of such governance.

    6) Prevalence of misinformation

    • It is essential to get a handle on the “infodemic” problem in India.
    • The situation was made far worse by the pandemic, where many of the prejudices, fears have converged.
    • Google-owned YouTube is a critical medium for spreading information, fact and fiction.
    • To its credit, YouTube removed over 8,20,000 videos in India in the first quarter of 2020.
    • This is a great start, but the bad guys will only find ways around it and Google must make deeper investments in both human and machine intelligence to stay ahead.

    7) Geopolitical context

    • India is inching closer to the US corner in the tech Cold War between the US and China.
    • India-China relationship has cooled this year as a fallout from the political tensions between New Delhi and Beijing.
    • India acted against Chinese ByteDance-owned video streaming app TikTok, along with 59 mobile apps.
    • Google’s role will be important as a bargaining chip against China and the partnership with Jio.
    • This important role may help Google get some domestic leverage with Indian regulators.

    8) Job creation

    • Digital technologies can create jobs.
    • For this to happen India must streamline the regulations to enhancing the country’s digital and physical foundations.
    • There is also need for developing more progressive data accessibility laws.
    • To translate into productive work, the government must invest in skill-building and education at all levels.

    Consider the question “Digitising India could accelerate its progress toward development but there are certain factors which must be addressed before India could reap benefits of digitising. Examine such factors and suggest the ways to deal with the issues in digitising the country.”

    Conclusion

    There is a lot Google can take while working on the task of digitising India. But the above-mentioned factors will help Google chart out its journey well.

    Original articles:

    https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/sundar-pichai-google-education-digital-india-6544793/

  • [pib] Sahakar Cooptube NCDC Channel

    Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare has launched the Sahakar Cooptube NCDC Channel, a new initiative by National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC).

    Note: Article 19 states that the Right to form co-operative societies is a Fundamental Right and DPSP Article 43-B provides for the promotion of co-operative societies.

    Sahakar Cooptube

    • The Sahakar Cooptube Channel aims to facilitate the involvement of the youth in the cooperative movement.
    • Cooperatives lend strength to farmers to minimize risks in agriculture and allied sectors and act as a shield against exploitation.
    • The channel will give a boost to Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan under which the government has announced a series of transformative measures and sector-specific financial packages to help agriculture.
    • The initiatives are steps towards One Nation One Market with the objective for India to become a food factory of the world.

    Back2Basics: NCDC

    • The NCDC is a statutory Corporation set up under an Act of Parliament on 13 March 1963.
    • The objectives of NCDC are:

    planning and promoting programmes for production, processing, marketing, storage, export and import of agricultural produce, foodstuffs, industrial goods, livestock and certain other notified commodities and services on cooperative principles and for matters concerned therewith or incidental thereto

    • NCDC Act has been further amended which will broad-base the area of operation of the Corporation to assist different types of cooperatives and to expand its financial base.
    • NCDC will now be able to finance projects in the rural industrial cooperative sectors and for certain notified services in rural areas like water conservation, irrigation and micro-irrigation, agri-insurance, agro-credit, rural sanitation, animal health, etc.

  • What is Parivar Pehchan Patra (PPP)?

    Haryana CM Manohar Khattar has distributed ‘Parivar Pehchan Patra’ to the eligible families and announced that welfare schemes of all departments would be linked with the PPP within the next three months.

    Practice question for mains:

    Q.What is Parivar Pehchan Patra (PPP) recently rolled out by Haryana Govt.? How it is beneficial compared to the Aadhaar?

    What is Parivar Pehchan Patra (PPP)?

    • It is an 8-digit Unique Identity Card number meant for each family to enable smooth and automatic delivery of several citizen-centric services.
    • The government will establish the scheme-wise eligibility of a particular family using this 8-digit code according to the information available in the PPP of the family.
    • The benefits, according to the schemes, shall automatically be transferred to the family using the same code.
    • PPP will ensure that not a single beneficiary is left out from the government benefits that they are entitled to.

    How is PPP different from the Aadhaar card?

    • The PPP, mathematically, is an integral number of Aadhaar.
    • While Aadhaar represents an individual as a unit, a PPP represents a family as a unit. Most of our government schemes are structured around the family.
    • It is not structured around an individual.
    • For example, ration eligibility is there for the family but the family can split it into various members as long as they are above 18 years and say they are separating entitlements for all individuals.

    Will it be mandatory for every family of Haryana to get PPP?

    • No, it will not be mandatory for every family of the state to obtain a PPP.
    • But, PPP is mandatory for families availing benefits under government schemes.
    • Also, whenever a family wants to avail any government scheme, it will have to first get a PPP to be eligible.

    The logic behind

    • Haryana officials said although there is a union government’s Aadhaar card, it contains individual’s details and does not cater to the entire family as a unit.
    • In certain circumstances, it may not be possible for a state government to keep track of all the families residing in the state.
    • Although the ration card system is there, it is not updated and does not contain adequate family records.
    • With the PPP, it will be easier for the state government to maintain a complete database of all the state dwellers.

    How would it work?

    • To begin with, the government has already linked PPP with three social security schemes – old age Samman allowance, divyang pension, and the widow and destitute women pension scheme.
    • For instance, when a family member turns 60, they will automatically get a message through the software and will automatically start getting benefits of the old-age pension if they meet the required criteria.
    • Similarly, the teenagers will get messages on turning 18 years old and shall become eligible for various government schemes that will be notified to them through the software.