A Fatal Error

It must have been more than six months since my last visit to the Bank. But, today was different -- I was literally laughing all the way to the bank, the reason being that I had just realized that we must have put aside at least three lakh and fifty thousand rupees by way of pension saved during the last six months. So, all in all, our recent trip to U.S had proved quite a ‘profitable’ one! As I entered the building I met Mr. Keluskar, our new neighbor, who stopped in his tracks on seeing me and said flashing his usual, wide, amiable grin “Ah, how very nice to see you again, Hattangadi Sahib! When did you come back from America? Must have been quite an enjoyable trip, what with splendid time you must have had with your children and grandchildren. ----- Oh, that reminds me. It was probably a month or so after you left when an inspector from our Virar police station dropped in one day making discreet enquiries about you. Nothing important, I am sure, because when I told him you were abroad he just went back without another word.” It was probably meant to be my first shock of the day even if a mild one, but, little did I know it then. So, I just took it all in my stride.

I then proceeded to the new Passbook Printing Kiosk in our bank to get my passbook updated; however, on seeing a long queue I changed my mind and went to the “CASH” counter instead to draw some money, which we badly needed to meet our household expenses. On re-opening the kitchen after a long time Kumud had prepared a big shopping list of grocery and other urgently needed items. When I presented the cheque for encashment, however, the pretty girl at the window asked me when I had operated my account last because it seemed to be suspended at the moment. I informed her that, in fact, I had not operated the account for quite some time as we had been out of the country and she gave me a sweet smile saying, “No problem, Sir. Please see our Operations Manager on the first floor. He will revive your account in no time.”

The Operation Manager turned out to be one Mrs. Chandra whom I had known since our Chembur days as she was working as a clerk in the SBI branch there. Although I couldn’t recognize her at first, she did and gave me a broad smile of recognition. When I told her of my problem, she said there was nothing to it and asked for my passbook. Then, she started typing out some instructions on her keyboard, gently at first, but, it soon turned vigorous with heavy banging on the keyboard. I could see my account was just refusing to open until finally she said throwing up her hands, “I don’t know, Sir. Why is your account not opening even after I’ve revived it twice? Oh, wait a minute. Did you submit your Life Certificate in November, Sir? ”  “No, I told you I was out of the country and your branch manager had told me that it was no longer a problem because all pension accounts are now linked to Aadhaar”  “ Still, at least once a year, you have to authenticate your account, Sir. Please, let me have your Aadhaar Number, Sir” she said while she produced a small rectangular widget from her drawer, plugged it in her computer and asked me to press my right forefinger on its glassy surface. There was a small beep from the device when she said, “There! We’re done, Sir. I will now update your passbook and print it.”

When she handed me the passbook, I gave it one close look when I got my second shock of the day! There was only one single entry in the book after I had drawn my pension last May and it showed a balance of only Rs. 58,000 or so. I told Mrs. Chandra that for the past six months I had not drawn a single penny from my account; so, I had expected to see my balance accumulate to at least 3 to 3.5 Lakhs rupees. “So, how come my pension has not been credited to the account for the past five months?” I asked rather peevishly. She said she wouldn’t know because all pension accounts are now handled by their Centralized Pension Processing Centre(CPCC) at Belapur in Navi Mumbai. She said everything regarding pension, whether it was passing the monthly bill, crediting the pension into your account or maintenance of records, was all done at CPCC in Belapur and the Pension Paying Bank(PPB) in Virar acted only like a “Cashier” window, where the actual payment was made into the pensioner’s account either in cash or by cheque.   

“Actually, the CPCC people can’t take suo moto action like this, you know.” said Mrs. Chandra “They just have no authority to revise or withhold anyone’s pension or even change the address --- only the sanctioning authority like your PAO or CPAO in BARC can do it. Wait a minute. I will call them and find out what the matter is” For next ten minutes, she was pretty busy talking on the phone to someone at CPCC.  After a while, she put down the phone and said, “Sir, he says that your pension account has been closed as of June 12^th, 2015 most probably by your CPAO from BARC. But, no one can touch your pension; so, they won’t close the account unless there’s either a specific request from the pensioner himself or a court decree or something like that. Then also it will be implemented only by CPPC. He said it’s all there on the next page.” She then shifted the screen display to the next page by pressing the “Page Down” button and indeed, there was a small cryptic message at the top left hand corner of the screen:

“June 12, 2015 :  Acct. CLOSED.               Reason: Pensioner Deceased.                                                                                              (vide CPAO1666.1014.4515) ”

It was for me not merely the third shock of the day but also a veritable Bolt from the Blue! For the first time in my life, I had that queer feeling in mind which one gets on learning from someone else that one is in fact dead! Suddenly, I felt totally drained out and I dropped down with a in a heap with a desperate sigh in the nearest chair. Mrs. Chandra’s face had turned pale white with a terrible look of fear in her eyes as though she had just seen an apparition walk into the room!

“No, Mrs. Chandra, it’s not true! I AM NOT DEAD!! I am still alive and kicking, see? ” I almost screamed.

Mrs. Chandra gulped down a glassful of water before she could barely manage to say, “I know. I know, Sir. We’re terribly sorry, Sir. I just don’t know how this could happen. You see, usually we at the bank are the first ones to know about the death of an account holder. We generally learn about it from his or her next of kin and in turn we relay the bad news to, CPCC or CPAO, who then inform PAO. It’s he who passes the order to close the account because only he has the authority. But, we will not do it until and unless we see an official Death Certificate first confirming the news. So, obviously, either there’s a bug in the program or someone has given a wrong command. But, there’s built-in safety against just such an eventuality. I have absolutely no idea how or who could have done it. Wait a minute. I will talk to the CPCC guys again”

“Hello, Mrs. Chandra here. Mr. Madhavan, something terrible has happened! Mr. Hattangadi, the man who I talked about a little while ago --- yes, that’s right, the man whose pension has been stopped --- Well, he is very much alive. Yes, Sir, you heard it right --- he is not dead, I repeat, NOT DEAD!  Yes, he is alive and he is sitting here right in front of me, all worked up and fuming, naturally. Yes, I know him very well, like the back of my hand. Aarre Bhai, only this morning I helped him upload his Digital Life Certificate. No, no. We didn’t report anything; we don’t even know where this news originated, probably it was his office at BARC.  No, Sir, I told you we didn’t ---- just one minute, Sir. I just saw a 12-digit number next to the last entry in his passbook; probably it’s his file number. Can you access it, Sir and see if we can get some more information about his reported death?  ----- Oh, you can? Fine, I will wait then for your call, Sir.”

           After some time, Mr. Madhavan of CPCC called back and told us that it was quite evident from the file that the pensioner, Mr. Hattangadi had died about five months back in a fatal car accident near Ambala and as proof, they had even included in the file a Death Certificate issued by Health Department of State Government of Haryana! He then proceeded to display the certificate on our screen for our benefit. Almost instantly, I saw on the screen staring in my face most derisively was a graphic of my own Death Certificate! I must be the only privileged man on earth to have had this honor of viewing one’s own death certificate during one’s lifetime! The certificate in question included, besides such demographic information as full name, gender, age, address etc, also other vital information as to the nature and cause of death, whether it was a natural one from old age, prolonged sickness or pregnancy, or whether it was due to electrocution or some other cause like a fatal car accident and further, in latter case, if it was caused by a sudden mechanical failure of the car or by drunken driving etc, etc. From the certificate, all I could gather was that I was supposedly involved in a tragic road accident on the Grand Trunk Road in a Haryanvi village, called Goripur, near the city of Ambala and that the driver was the sole occupant in the car and that he had died instantly on the spot leaving behind no clue as to his identity.  Probably, as it happens often in such cases, the body was badly mutilated and disfigured beyond recognition and the police could find no one to identify the dead body. I did not understand how, under these circumstances, the police could so conclusively say that the body was mine and how on earth had they managed to get even my correct name and address!  Perhaps, the dead man was a crook or an imposter, who had assumed my identity as his alibi from some dastardly crime that he might have committed!!  I shuddered at the mere thought of this remote but nevertheless most likely possibility.          

           Next day, I paid a visit to our Chief Pay & Accounts Officer (CPAO) sitting in Anushakti Bhavan at Old Yacht Club near Gateway of India and found that the authorities there were not even aware of my existence as a DAE ex-employee, let alone my ‘alleged’ death in Ambala. However, fortunately, I found in the present CPAO, one Mr. Mukul Mehta, a congenial old fellow in late fifties, who gave me a patient hearing and then promised to do what best he could for me. He picked up his intercom and asked his secretary to call one Mr. Sanatani to his office. A little later, I was introduced to the man who, it turned out, was their software expert looking after their computers.  After Mr. Mehta briefed him with my tale of woes, Mr. Sanatani promptly sat comfortably in his chair closing his eyes as if he had gone into a deep trance and then suddenly, opening his eyes, burst out: “But, how is that possible? We have built-in safety, proper firewalling and anti-phishing codes in our system to protect it against any malware and spyware attacks. So, I don’t understand how some silly Death Cert. from Haryana could make its way into the system to block payments in your account? ”   “Silly or not, it has succeeded all the same in withholding my pension for the past five months! ” I interrupted making a weak attempt at a polite reminder of the primary reason for my being there. “Oh! That can be easily explained.” he said waiving his hands, “You see, the SBI computers are probably programmed to auto-close a pension account the moment it encounters a Death Cert. in its cache memory. It becomes the responsibility of the bank personnel therefore to check the authenticity of the certificate before it gets uploaded in the system. In the present case, however, no one seems to know in the first place how or by whom the Cert. was uploaded in the database.”

“No matter how it got in there, we all know now that it’s a fake one. So, why can’t we just delete it and go ahead to revive my pension account?”

“No, Mr. Hattangadi, it’s not simple as that! We did try it this morning and found to our dismay that no sooner we delete out the Cert. it pops back into life again in no time! Why, I can show it to you right now.” So saying, he pulled a laptop lying on the table, tapped on some of the colorful icons and swiftly swiped his finger across the touch screen to scroll the display until he arrived at a file named BARC/NPD/G/601/0047. He opened the file and pressed on the “Page Down” button to reveal on screen a message that gave me a strange feeling of ‘déjà vu’:

         “12 June, 2015: Acct. Closed.                      Reason: Pensioner Deceased ----”

There was also in addition alongside a small graphic showing my alleged ‘Death Certificate’, which too I had seen once before. When Mr. Sanatani pressed the ‘Delete’ button on the laptop, both the message and the graphic disappeared instantly, only to make a re-appearance a moment later with only the date changed to the current date. For reasons best known to him, Mr. Sanatani kept playing with the keyboard to flash the blessed certificate on screen again and again. It was most irritating and getting on my nerves. It was then that I suddenly noticed for the first time something unusual about the certificate.

    The Death Certificate from Govt. of  Haryana

         

         “Hold it there, will you?” I almost yelled at the perplexed officer “Tell me, like Bank account can you also link a Death Certificate to Aadhaar card?”

“No. --- Not at present. Well, there’s some talk going on those lines in some of the States like Haryana and M.P, who are planning to introduce it. But, why do you ask? ”

“I am asking because for a fleeting moment I think I just saw my Aadhaar Number on that Death Certificate.” 

  

Mr. Sanatani took a second look at the screen to verify my observation and then, like Archimedes in his bath tub, he was so excited that he could not help, but scream, “Ah, there you are! Now, I know why your Death Cert. refuses to go.” he said almost in one breath, “You see, as it was issued in Haryana it’s got linked to your Aadhaar and hence, also to your pension account in SBI. As long as there’s Aadhaar in the SBI database it also has your Death Certificate and so SBI protocol cannot help blocking your pension”

“Is there then no way out of this mess?”

“No, not unless we delink Aadhaar and Death Certificate; only Haryanvi’s who did the linking in the first place will be in a position to do that because they would have the proper codec. Well, SBI can at the most delink your pension account from Aadhaar, but, that will again stop pension from getting credited into account. So, Mr. Hattangadi, I think you have no option but to go to New Delhi and seek help from UIDAI. Maybe they can help you out.”

 “UIDAI, what’s that?”

“Oh, they’re the Aadhaar people.”         

Next morning, I was in UIDAI office in Delhi sitting in the office of Mr. V.P.  Singh, the Deputy Director General of UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India). He was sitting in his chair deeply engrossed in thought, probably mulling over my narration of the story of my recent experiences. It took him some time before he leaned back in his chair and said pleasantly, “Oh! Congrats, Mr. Hattangadi!  You have nothing to worry about!! I see your biometrics match perfectly with what we have in our database thus authenticating both your identity as well as existence. As I told you, our unique identification methodology is quite reliable and safe from any un-authorized intrusion or attempt at duplication, forgery or fraud. Once your biometrics is entered into our database, by default it gets locked there and no one can ever change it. Even if some unscrupulous element did try to steal your identity, he would only succeed in getting himself caught in the act by our de-duplication process and face subsequent legal action with severe penalties.”

 “But, obviously the dead man in the Ambala car accident had successfully assumed my identity because his Death Certificate shows all my personal details from full name, date of birth and present address to even my Aadhaar Number! How come? ”

  “Well, to tell you the truth I am also completely baffled. Because, we seldom reveal or transfer to anyone your personal information held in our database, except for the specific purpose of verifying a person’s identity by giving a simple ‘Yes/No’ response to queries made. UIDAI database has no links with any other database or no one has access to information held therein, except for some public service agencies approved by UIDAI, like banks etc, which can access the data through our e-KYC service only for the specific purpose of verifying the identity of a person before making him a payment from the Government like pension, gas subsidy etc and all this is made possible with a one-time-password, issued with express knowledge and permission of the Aadhaar card holder.”

  “So, also, your personal identification data appearing in the Death Certificate becomes possible, if and only if it is linked to your Aadhaar Number. Although we ourselves are still to introduce Aadhaar seeding in Birth / Death Certificates, I understand some State Governments like Haryana have already done it. This seems to be the most plausible explanation, but technically we are not in a position to help since it is up to the Government of Haryana now. It is their baby and the ball is in their court. However, do not worry, Sir. Give me a week and we will do what we can to help you out of this most vexing problem. I am sure we will find some way.”

“I have already assigned one of our bright young officers to get to the bottom of this rather unusual problem and he is right now in Chandigarh seeing the DIG (Police) there, who is a good old friend of mine. He will give my man all the help needed to get the low-down on this case.” said Mr. Singh and as if to placate me, he offered me a cup of tea and biscuits, “But don’t worry, Sir, your pension will be revived, eventually; only, please bear with us until then. We are extremely sorry for all the trouble and unnecessary anxiety caused by this problem.”     

  

Just then, there was a light knock on the door and a smart young man walked in. Mr. Singh nodded and showed him to a chair by my side. When the young man settled in his chair, he said, “Oh! Mr. Chopra, I see you’re back already from Chandigarh. Well, we were just talking about you. By the way, this is Mr. Hattangadi from Mumbai who is having this most unusual problem with his pension. Now, could you please brief us on what all information you could gather in Chandigarh? ”

 “Well, to cut the long story short” said the young man after a slight pause, “Sir, the mysterious man killed on the spot in this horrible accident at Amballa was probably just driving through the city on his way to Delhi. As he was a stranger in the city, there was no one around, who the local police could find, to identify the body which was anyway badly mutilated with the face disfigured beyond recognition. So, the police searched his belongings for a possible clue and found a blood-stained Aadhaar card, with the help of which they could identify the man as one Mr. Vasant Hattangadi from a small town called Virar near Mumbai. Haryana Police, on their part, were discreet enough to request their counterparts in Mumbai to pass on the sad news to the deceased’s next of kin. They were all too stunned and taken aback, however, when I told them that they had made an obvious mistake in identifying the dead man as Mr. Vasant Hattangadi was alive and at the moment sitting in our Delhi office protesting about being declared dead though alive. They immediately rushed someone off to the police station to get the personal effects of the dead man, which luckily they were still holding. I found the ‘offending’ Aadhaar card in the lot in a very bad shape; it was so mucky and dirty that it was hardly legible. However, with some difficulty we could manage to read its serial number as 1234 4683 9011 and not 1234 4638 9011, as mentioned in the Death Certificate. Obviously, someone either at the police station or at the hospital which issued the Certificate, had goofed-up. Now, of course, the defective Death Certificate has been duly invalidated and cancelled, while a new one has been issued in its place and linked to the correct Aadhaar Number. By the way, we now know the real identity of the dead man: he was a businessman dealing in automobiles, by name Vasan Hattikundur, hailing from Malleswaram in Bangaluru.”   

 “The rest is all history. All’s well that ends well...” said Mr. V.P. Singh chuckling triumphantly, “So, Mr. Hattangadi, now you don’t have to worry anymore about some unknown, dead man running away with your pension. I knew all along that our Aadhaar methodology of personal identification is simply impeccable and there had to be a human error somewhere in this hullabaloo! After all, as they say, to err is human and --------”

“To forgive divine!  But, this error or blunder proved quite unfortunate for me. Well, let me take your leave, Mr. Singh and thank you so much. Thank you very much, indeed.”

 After almost a week of running around from pillar to post, I was at last feeling relaxed and happy. When I stepped out of the building it was nearly sunset time. As I entered a radial road in Connaught Circus, I just turned back to have one last look at the sprawling UIDAI building, now silhouetted in all its glory against the backdrop of a crimson evening sky of New Delhi.

            Au revoir, Aadhaar!