Dipankar Gupta’s comparison of the UPA government’s much debated direct cash transfer scheme with the conditional cash transfer in Brazil was interesting (“The promise of unconditional money,” Dec. 6). I was really impressed on reading about the checks the Brazil government has put in place to ensure that the beneficiaries are indeed eligible for the cash transfers.
It is not possible to implement the scheme in India in a similar manner. With rampant corruption, even the task of evolving a mechanism to check the eligibility of the beneficiaries may be a daunting task. The scheme may be made to look good on papers and even termed successful for political purposes.
Tarun Girdhar,
Chandigarh
The UPA government wants to cap subsidies. Cash transfers at no point of time will be adjusted to inflation in near future. The aam aadmi will be exposed to the vagaries of the market forces. All the cash transfer will do is to provide the voters a false sense of satisfaction at election time.
M. Sathyamoorthy,
Tindivanam