January 1 too ambitious a deadline, say states

Several states told the UPA government to conduct a reality check of its ambitious cash transfer project on Thursday, asserting that January 1 was a far too ambitious deadline - especially without the requisite technological assistance. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Dec 14, 2012, 01:46:04 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Several states told the UPA government to conduct a reality check of its ambitious cash transfer project on Thursday, asserting that January 1 was a far too ambitious deadline - especially without the requisite technological assistance.

To assess the situation on the ground, the PMO had called a meeting of chief secretaries of 16 states and collectors of 43 districts, where the direct cash transfer scheme has to be rolled out from January 1, 2013.

Though the roll-out of the cash transfer scheme in pilot areas had covered only a few hundreds of people, it still turned out to be far from seamless. "Many beneficiaries were left out because they did not have a bank account," said a district collector who participated in the meeting. "Covering the entire district will take much more time."

While one official identified low penetration of the UID as a reason of concern, others said it was the lack of resources for digitising all the records in English. In many states, the beneficiary data is in the local language.

The Centre assured financial assistance of Rs 10 per person for seeding the Aadhaar number after the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) said it can only provide technical assistance.

Pulak Chatterjee, the principal secretary to the PM, emphasised on the road map for ensuring the smooth transition from paper to paper-less system, and assured financial help for the same.

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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