Aadhaar-less tribal family suffers

MISSING IDENTITIES | Digital India bypasses Katkari family; identities forgotten in development's shadow

- Indu Bhagat

While India celebrates the purported reach of development through direct benefit transfers as it galloped to the 75th year of becoming a Republic, a 60-year-old tribal man, Ramatukaram Katkari, from Khadakwasla near Pune, has been fighting a different battle for himself and his family. His struggle to secure an Aadhaar card—and with it, access to government schemes—highlights a stark disparity between the nation's developmental rhetoric, the technological achievements and the reality on the ground.

Located 20 km from Maharashtra's cultural capital, Pune, the Katkari community in Gore Budruk, a village in Khadakwasla with a population of around 30, remains largely excluded from Central and Maharashtra governments' welfare programmes. Originally from Raigad district and traditionally engaged in making Katha from the Khair tree, from where the community derives its name, many Katkaris have now turned to fishing and labour. Despite India having a tribal president at the helm, many tribes, like the Katkari, are without official identity documents. This irony causes ordeal for many like Ramatukaram.