UPA whittles down cash transfer scope

The UPA government's big poll plank, direct cash transfer, has been whittled down even before being implemented from January 1, 2013. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Dec 12, 2012, 24:45:48 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The UPA government's big poll plank, direct cash transfer, has been whittled down even before being implemented from January 1, 2013.

India's old age and widow pension security scheme, National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP), does not find mention among the 34 central schemes that would move into direct cash transfer mode from January next.

Finance minister P Chidambaram had recently said that benefits under 42 Central schemes would be transferred directly into Aadhaar enabled bank accounts in 51 districts from January 1, 2013.

The Planning Commission on Tuesday said the cash transfer would be applicable only to 34 schemes in 43 districts.

The eight districts removed from the list are in election-bound Himachal and Gujarat, but the election commission's directive has come as a blessing in disguise as enrollment for Aadhaar number in four districts of Gujarat ranged from 6% to 12%.

The plan panel, mandated to coordinate government's efforts to implement cash transfer, has not put any big pension scheme in the list probably because the records of beneficiaries are not digitized and many of them live in remote areas where internet connectivity would be poor.

"Pensions are paid in different modes and integrating them is a problem," said a senior government official. Pensions are disbursed through bank or post office accounts, cheque or money order and in cash.

The selection of the schemes shows that the government wants to showcase success of direct cash transfer. In fact, 29 schemes are purely scholarships given to students from schools to colleges, where the benefit is already being in a cash transfer mode.

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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