A State government has approached the Centre for taking the lead on offering a Universal Basic Income to its residents by clubbing all subsidies for the poor funded by the central and state governments, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday.
While Mr. Jaitley didn’t name the state, he said that Universal Basic Income (UBI) is an idea worth considering that could eliminate poverty overnight wherever it’s implemented. Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian had devoted a chapter in the Economic Survey on the UBI concept as a means to alleviate poverty instead of myriad subsidies.
“Today, I had the first finance minister of a state meeting me to say that my state is willing to take the plunge as a pilot project, pooling in all the state and central subsidies. ‘We will identify the poor people in our state, and we will give a cheque to them at the beginning of every month,” Mr Jaitley said at an Assocham annual function.
“The UBI is an idea worth considering. It’s an idea where a state has come forward. It’s an experiment that can be a significant reform,” the minister said.
“If adequately implemented in a given region, it can eliminate poverty in that region overnight. Because there will be nobody hungry… you identify the weakest section of society and you have the basic resource, the rest they can earn from MGNREGA or any other formal or informal employment,” he added.
