Adopting caution, the Union government on Monday scaled down the launch of its ambitious direct cash transfer scheme on Tuesday to 20 districts, instead of 43 as planned. It has also kept LPG also out of its ambit for now.
The government took this decision because a sizeable number of beneficiaries in the targeted districts do not have bank accounts to receive cash and the Aadhaar enrolment is also inadequate.
Touted as a game-changer, the programme will cover a select 26 schemes such as educational scholarship for SC/ST and OBC, and widow pension. Food, fertilizers, diesel and kerosene have already been kept out.
Addressing the media on the eve of the rollout, Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said the programme was being launched on January 1 in only 20 districts in six States and three Union Territories as the government wanted to move cautiously.
“We are proceeding with a great degree of caution ... We will look at transferring all subsidies and benefit through this scheme but we have to do it slowly. We are not going to rush into anything and then find that the system cannot cope with it,” the Minister said.
The government originally identified 51 districts across 16 States to be covered by the programme, under which cash subsidy benefit will directly go to the bank account of the beneficiaries having Aadhaar number.
Himachal, Gujarat exempted
Subsequently, four districts each in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat were exempted from the rollout because of the Assembly elections recently held there. The States to be covered in the initial phase are Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab and the UTs of Puducherry, Chandigarh and Daman and Diu.
Keywords: P. Chidambaram, UIDAI, Aadhaar, direct cash transfer scheme, cash benefits transfer, government subsidies
I doubt! GOI & its employees are purposefully working to fail the benefit transfer scheme systematically. (1) is it a congress party program or GOI program? (2) why it is so ghastly executed without ground work and preparing basic requirement like bank a/c or ADAAR card no? This will generate route for corruption in the BTS as well, Do you establish a hole in the very system for thriving corruption again?. For Indian we need a system perfectly preventing every chances for any type of corruption. It is not congress program but must be GOI program but definitely foolproof & fail proof. So much hyped propaganda on TBS will cause great damage to present government. But silent implementation and thus generating good will benefit government and economy in big way. It will eliminate corruption in the tune of 100,000 crore which is not small thing. Public can imagine the extend of the damage incurred by unscrupulous corruption till now which is contributed by so called public servant from all walks of life. So to finish this endless loot BTS is one tool. Also go ahead with anticorruption watchdog in both houses. Let it fail For lack of enough vote. public will support the government for implementing it. Indians need strong action to lead India to be a developed nation, with all its citizen enjoying equal rights without gender bias or cast bias, except for support / reservation based on economic / purchasing power for BPL.
We earnestly hope that this measure will be scrapped with no further
delay in the light of the Note of Dissent by eminent personalities ( The
Hindu 31/12/2012) , not making it as prestige issue, as it will bring
disastrous consequences to an already beleaguered regime, due to its
faulty economic policies pursued during the last 8 years.
It is now evident that it was a Congress poll plank. Needless to say that this UPA government is only fooling and cheeting public. I do not know, how the Election Commission looks at it now.
The scheme of direct cash transfer is commendable because other
indirect means of social schemes have failed to give results. This
scheme will undoubtedly give cheers to beneficiaries. However what
checks exist to ensure 100% effectiveness without siphoning of money
from the system is a moot question. If aadhar number is taken base
for verification then it means biometric matching will be the final
interlock to gain access to cash transfer. In recent past questions
have been raised taking non matching of finger prints or irish scans.
How this scheme will be facilitated for beneficiaries having
problems of biometric data matching.What avenues exist for corruption
under this system needs to be critically analysed by government.
People involved in biometic verfication can fool people by saying
that finger prints are not matching and then from back door some
agent will demand money to facilitate cash transfer. So this scheme
potential of both direct cash transfer and direct cash siphoning
Let's see you execute an anti-rape law with the same urgency
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