Mandatory biometric authentication for welfare scheme access often raises the tension between administrative efficiency and inclusion. Discuss with examples from LPG subsidy delivery.

Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act, 2016 permits Aadhaar authentication as a condition for subsidies drawn from the Consolidated Fund, while Puttaswamy (2018) held that it cannot become a ground to deny a genuine beneficiary. Biometric e-KYC in LPG delivery sits precisely on this fault line.

The efficiency case is strong and audit-driven

• The CAG's PMUY audit found 1.6 crore connections (42% of 3.78 crore) issued on Aadhaar alone, 12.5 lakh SECC name mismatches and 1.9 lakh connections released to men [2].
• The CAG itself recommended electronic KYC to authenticate genuineness of beneficiaries [2] — so the mandate is the auditor's remedy, not an external imposition.
• With over 30 crore PAHAL consumers, only automated authentication can de-duplicate at scale and keep targeted subsidy flowing correctly [1].

The inclusion risk is equally real

• Fingerprint quality degrades with manual labour and age — precisely among poor rural women, PMUY's target group.
• Authentication at the distributor counter recreates the PDS precedent, where failed biometric matches turned away genuine cardholders.
• Exclusion here is invisible: enrolment figures are published, failure rates are not.

How the tension is being managed

• Authentication is offered through a mobile app, at the point of delivery, or at the showroom [1]; MoPNG has clarified it applies only to consumers not yet authenticated, refill supply is unaffected, and no benefit has been withdrawn for pending e-KYC [5].
• Aadhaar face authentication, with over 130.5 crore transactions, provides a working fallback where fingerprints fail [4].

The deeper limitation Biometrics police the entry gate, not diversion after delivery — and LPG's binding constraint is affordability, not identity: PMUY per capita consumption rose to roughly 4.4 cylinders in FY 2024-25, still far short of the 12 subsidised refills permitted [3].

Efficiency and inclusion are reconcilable if safeguards are made enforceable rather than declaratory: embed the no-denial assurance and face-authentication fallback in OMC circulars, publish district-wise failure data, and cross-validate against SECC as the CAG advised [2]. Targeting then serves, rather than supplants, the scheme's clean-cooking-fuel purpose.