Govt disburses Rs. 20 cr under cash transfer scheme

It is first success for the UPA government’s “game-changer” direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme with about Rs. 20 crore been transferred directly into their bank accounts through unique identification (UID) payment bridge, Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jan 31, 2013, 01:18:54 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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It is first success for the UPA government’s “game-changer” direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme with about Rs. 20 crore been transferred directly into their bank accounts through unique identification (UID) payment bridge.

The Central government had decided to launch the electronic cash transfer mechanism from January 1 in 20 districts of the country by transferring money into bank accounts of beneficiaries under seven Central government schemes.

A review of the scheme by the Prime Minister’s Office shows that 60,000 people in these districts have got money directly under DBT through UIDAI payment-bridge since January 1 from the Central government.

It is just tip of an iceberg.

There are about 6.5 lakh beneficiaries in these 20 districts who receive money in form of scholarships and pensions from the government in these schemes.

But, the problem is that only half of the total beneficiaries have both UID or Aadhaar number and bank account --- must to transfer money using UID payment-bridge. Another 39,000 people neither have Aadhaar number or a bank account resulting in DBT starting sluggishly.

Principal secretary to prime Pulak Chatterjee instructed UIDAI officials to speed up enrollment in the pilot districts so that there is 100 % coverage of beneficiaries by end of February 2013. And this would help the government to showcase success of the UPA’s ambitious plan in the budget to be presented by finance minister P Chidambaram.

Secretary planning Sindhushree Khullar at the same meeting pointed out seeding of Aadhaar numbers in the bank accounts of beneficiaries was consuming lot of time, thereby slowing down the DBT implementation. She also said that most of the Central government ministries do not have digitised records of the beneficiaries.

On the positive side, the districts have witnessed faster financial inclusion with around 4.2 lakh beneficiaries now having bank accounts. Also, the banks in these districts have started providing banking services at the door-step through banking correspondents.

The PMO has also directed the ministries to ensure preparedness including working out the details of the architecture on information flow and beneficiary verification before next phase of DBT implementation from March 1, 2013.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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