A technical glitch has allegedly again come in the way of citizens’ access to vital government support. At a time Maharashtra declared its intent to extend the PM POSHAN school meal programme to class 10, it has come to pass that in a large part of the state, teachers are paying for midday meals from their own pockets as disbursement under the central scheme has been delayed for months because of a technical problem. This follows lakhs of people locked out of their food rations or pensions because of trouble with Aadhaar-linking or other digital technologies. As courts have held, such problems cannot be proffered as reasons to deny people their essentials. Manual workarounds must be embedded in the schemes’ rules to avoid such troubles.
