The identification of beneficiaries for the government’s flagship initiative Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) in the districts of Krishna and Guntur and the documentation and processing of the data has to be completed by July 1, according to Principal Secretary (Finance) P.V. Ramesh.
Addressing a workshop on DBT here on Wednesday, he said at present the payment of various schemes was being done through a complex administrative system that diminishes the benefit value by the time it reaches the beneficiaries. To avoid this problem and other issues such as duplication, delay and fakes and ghosts, the DBT scheme was initiated, wherein the benefit would directly reach the beneficiaries and would plug corruption, eliminate wastage, improve transparency, and stem leakages.
The DBT scheme was launched on January 1 this year as a pilot project in five districts of the State such as Chittoor, Rayalaseema, Hyderabad, Anantapur, and East Godavari. The districts of Krishna and Guntur were selected for implementation in the second phase.
Giving details of the DBT scheme, he explained that it was basically linked to the Aadhaar card or the unique identification number. Talking to The Hindu, Mr. Ramesh said, “the Aadhaar card number of every beneficiary will be fed into the database and it will be linked to the bank account as per the National Payment Corporation of India guidelines that is drawn by the Reserve Bank of India. And once this process is done, a beneficiary can directly withdraw the benefits from the bank or from Micro ATMs that will be run by the self-help groups or mobile business correspondents of the nominated banks. DBT system can be monitored online and real time.”
The DBT initiative would initially cover three major components such as scholarships, pensions and LPG distribution. “Under the scholarships and pensions we will cover various schemes initiated both by the State and the Central government. Other components such as MNREGA will be included in it later,” said Mr. Ramesh.
Task set for staff
Setting task for the district administrations, the Principal Secretary urged the District Collectors and officers concerned to go for targeted enrolment of Aadhaar cards for the beneficiaries and take up an elaborate IEC campaign to speed up the process.
Deputy Director-General of UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) M.V.S. Rami Reddy in his presentation pointed out that Krishna district had a population of about 45 lakhs and so far 83 per cent has been covered under the Aadhaar programme and similarly Guntur has a population of around 48 lakhs and 85 per cent has been covered. He urged the district Collectors to speed up the process and at the same time build a strong network with other stake holders such as banks, BSNL and other technology partners to see that the programme runs smoothly without any glitches.
Mr. Reddy said that out of the 130 crore plus population in the country, 34 crore were covered under the Aadhaar card programme and about 27 crore were issued the cards already. “We intend to cover another 40 crore by the end of next year and cover the entire population by 2016,” he said.
