AI in Digital Welfare Schemes: Help or a New Barrier?

India’s digital welfare infrastructure is among the most ambitious governance projects in the world.The state today delivers subsidies, pensions, food support, healthcare, and employment benefits to millions of citizens through this digital system. In recent years, it has begun incorporating an AI tool which uses facial recognition as a new method for beneficiary verification. The promise is real: fewer ghost beneficiaries, less . fraud, no fumbling for documents. At the scale at which India operates its welfare programmes, even small leakages can impose high fiscal costs and weaken public trust in digital systems. The moral of the story is that India’s digital welfare should not become grounds for exclusion for those who are not adept with technology. A worn face, weak rural network, an old Aadhaar photo, darker skin the model reads poorly. Government data shows that only 52.7% of eligible beneficiaries received rations by the end of 2025. News Source: Observer Research Foundation

News Source: Observer Research Foundation