Back in Gurrampeta, Kris and his colleagues, found a 6-volt car battery and kicked off their experiment which promised to usher in radical changes at the grass root level ‘’where villagers working in agricultural fields, construction sites or factories were always being exploited by greedy, corrupt middlemen.’’ Their village initiative had been possible only after several rounds of counselling and explanations. It was quite understandable, as the villagers had only recently been taken for a big ride.

Soon after the 2005 floods in coastal Andhra Pradesh spread over Khammam district, the Hyderabad-based Centre for World Solidarity, a NGO, announced solatium of Rs. 500 each for many villages including Gurrampeta. ‘‘A middleman, authorised to distribute the relief money, put his thumbprints across 135 names of affected villagers and pocketed funds worth Rs. 75,000,’’ says Kris. Only 15 villagers actually got the relief. Kris explained to the disillusioned villagers that this would never happen with a biometric device where each of them would have a ‘unique identity’ by registering their thumbprint into the machine and their photographs integrated through software. So, every time they put their thumb on the optical scan for verification, their photographs would pop up. The biometric device has a provision to enter the citizen’s ID and displays the ID and name on a LCD screen.

‘‘When a villager signs in for work, he registers on he biometric device. He does the same when he finishes work. So, there is an official record of the man days he puts in which cannot be tampered with and he has to be paid for work done on those days. We have work records (muster-rolls) in villages showing how supervisors have tampered with number of working days of villagers so that they could pocket the extra cash,’’ said Kris. ‘‘A biometric-based smart card where the citizen uses the information of what he has, what he knows and what he is, ensures a high level of security,’’ he added.

... contd.