Seva Sindhu registration will hamper schemes, say activists

For people who hope to benefit from the government's five guarantee schemes, the registration on the Seva Sindhu portal is set to be a huge bottleneck while officials at the e-governance wing are preparing for a flood of applications.

Officials in two departments said they were still discussing some of the issues pertaining authentication. "There are some confusions regarding verification and authentication of beneficiaries. The issues will be resolved and finalised during the discussions over the next two-three days. A detailed set of guidelines will be issued soon," a senior official in the Transport Department told DH.

Activists, however, questioned the government's move to make registration mandatory for women to avail of the free bus travel scheme. "This is an unnecessary barrier that will have a negative impact, especially for women from marginal communities and rural areas. Registration on Seva Sindhu was made mandatory to avail of aid during Covid and the result is denial of service to thousands of drivers and domestic workers," activist and advocate Vinay Srinivasa said.

To a question, an official in the e-governance department said authentication of the beneficiaries on Seva Sindhu was necessary to prevent leakages. "Besides ruling out leakages, there will be accountability in the expenditure. There will be initial hiccups, which is common for all the programmes. It can be overcome with some effort," he said.

Read | Registration on Seva Sindhu must for Gruha Jyothi

Human rights activist Isaac Arul Selva, however, said the idea of the schemes fails to provide social justice. "Members of the marginalised communities often lack documents like ration cards and Aadhaar. These kinds of restrictions will straight away lead to denial of benefits to people who need them most. Why can't Karnataka learn from others? Tamil Nadu has introduced free bus travel for women without any need for identification. They could have offered just 100 units of free electricity for all accounts. Instead, they are introducing rules that will keep many people away from accessing the schemes," he said.

Meanwhile, the e-governance department is boosting the capacity of the portal to prepare for the registration. At present, the portal sees about 50,000 applications per day but officials are preparing to receive five lakh applications. "We have already begun work on boosting the capacity and the work will be completed in the next two days. Cloud technology will also be used for additional storage facilities, if needed," V Ponnuraj, Secretary, E-governance said.

To a question on the lack of digital literacy in rural areas, the official said Grama One, Karnataka One and Bangalore One centres will cater to people who find it difficult to use the Seva Sindhu portal.