Thousands of people in India have been 'killed' by an algorithm

An algorithm used by the government of the Indian state of Haryana to simplify citizens' welfare claims has mistakenly marked several thousand people, mostly elderly, as dead. These citizens no longer receive their pensions and cannot access services until they prove they are alive

Chandigarh (AsiaNews/Agencies) - An algorithm developed by the government of the Indian state of Haryana - in northern India - to check whether or not people can have access to welfare services and pensions, has "killed" several of its inhabitants.

In fact, there are thousands of inhabitants who have been mistakenly declared dead by the operating system and who are doing everything they can to prove that they are still alive. Because they are not receiving pension nor can they have any primary service.

Among the "victims" of the algorithm is 102-year-old Dhuli Chand, who organized a fake wedding procession just to prove to city officials that he was alive. In fact, during the procession he sat on a cart holding a sign that said, in the local dialect, "thara foofa zinda hai", or "I am still alive".

The elderly man had to stage this elaborate display after he suddenly stopped receiving his monthly pension of around 2,750 rupees six months earlier because he was declared “dead” in government records.

The bureaucratic hitch for him and nearly 300,000 state residents occurred after Haryana began using the Family Identity Data Repository, a database to determine the eligibility of state welfare claims.

“We went to the district offices at least 10 times, including Chand five times,” said nephew Naresh. “Even after several attempts to correct this anomaly in government offices and after filing a formal complaint, nothing happened.”

According to the data - not officially recognized by the region's government - approximately 277,115 elderly citizens and 52,479 widowed women have been declared dead and have lost their pension or allowance since the algorithm was introduced in 2020.

State officials insist that the program remains an effective tool in processing welfare claims: “This system is facilitating and improving the delivery of services to beneficiaries and preventing losses through the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning ,” said Sofia Dahiya, secretary of the state Citizen Resources Information Department.

After Chand's 'wedding procession' hit the headlines, thousands of people thronged the district offices of Haryana's social welfare department. In response, the government opened complaints offices across Haryana.

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar added that 44,000 out of 63,000 beneficiaries whose pensions were suspended by mistake were later refunded. Khattar says the government has since corrected most of the erroneous documents. But according to reports from local journalistic investigations, there are still thousands of citizens without services and pensions.

In photo: Dhuli Chand, 102 years old

• INDIA
• algorithm
• welfare
• pensions