Govt literally adopts Aapka Paisa Aapka Haath for DBT

The government has literally adopted the Congress slogan of Aapka Paisa Apka Haath in its "game-changer" direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Feb 4, 2013, 20:36:52 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The government has literally adopted the Congress slogan of Aapka Paisa Apka Haath in its "game-changer" direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme.

The money being transferred into bank accounts of beneficiaries is in terms of paisa, the lowest denominator of the Indian currency, and not rupees. For instance, if somebody gets Rs 500 in his or her bank account, the DBT system will show it as 500000 paisa.

In a direction issued to all Central government ministries, the Planning Commission asked them to send all payment advice files containing details of the Aadhaar or Unique Identification (UID) number, scheme reference number and amount in paisa to the bank account for direct benefit transfer.

Having a link between the Congress slogan and the DBT was not coincidental.

Government officials said that money transfer in paisa terms was requirement of the digital system to maintain uniformity. "The system interprets a dot differently and it would have created technical issues leading to problems in transfer of funds," an official said.

Therefore, the government decided that all electronic transfer of funds to millions of beneficiaries across India under the seven Central government schemes would be in paisa terms.

In a way, it would mean a little more work for government officials as they would be required to calculate the benefit to be transferred in paisa terms and fill it in the payment advice to the banks, where the beneficiaries have account.

The Central government has transferred around Rs 20 crore into bank accounts of around 6.5 lakh beneficiaries.

The UPA government had introduced DBT in seven Central government schemes in 20 districts from January 1 and another 11 districts have been added from February 1. The government wants to put most of the Central government schemes on the DBT system by end of 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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