The Andhra Pradesh government has announced the introduction of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based Realtime Beneficiary Identification System (RBIS) by October 2020. The RBIS will replace the old PDO system which is currently in place for pensioner identification. According to a high-placed official, the move is to curb the scope of misappropriation of funds as the present PDO system is full of defects. 

The move comes as part of the nine promises, the Navarathnalu, made by the YSRCP during the election under which the government pays pensions to over 61 lakh people from poor and vulnerable groups such as senior citizens, widows, single women, persons with disability and several other such citizens. 

The social security pensions, however, are not uniform for all the groups - it ranges from Rs 2,250 per month for groups such as senior citizens, widows, toddy tappers, weavers, single women, fishermen, ART (PLHIV) persons, traditional cobblers while for disabled persons, transgenders and dappu artists, it is Rs 3,000 per month. People with chronic kidney diseases are paid Rs 10,000 per month. AS most of the beneficiaries are uneducated, the PDO authentication through thumb impression is found to have given rise to corruption. 

The pensions are disbursed by village and ward secretariat volunteers after receiving thumb-impression. Due to several reasons - such as smudged thumb impressions or no impressions at all - the volunteers are reported to do a partial payment, keeping the other half for themselves. 

This practice will be curbed with the introduction are the AI-based RBIS which is all set to be introduced in October. The system will allow people to authenticate by facial recognition on a real-time basis, as shared by the official. 

The system has already been deployed in East and West Godavaries and Krishan districts for the last three months, as part of an experiment. Only after the successful implementation of the system has the officials have now decided to roll-out the technology state-wide, revealed the official.