NEW DELHI, Apr 29:Admitting there could be hiccups while covering the entire country under direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme, Plan panel Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia today exuded confidence that its beneficiaries will have greater satisfaction in the next 5-6 months.
“My guess is that in next five to six months in most of the areas where scheme is being rolled out (and where it is already rolled out), you will get very high rate of satisfaction”, Ahluwalia told reporters on the district magistrates’ meet on the issue here.
“…After that, scaling it up for country as a whole is practical problem but it will be very clear that the scheme is well designed and it can be implemented”, he added.
The government had called the meeting of district magistrates of all the 121 targeted districts to discuss ways to address hitches that may have been detected in implementation of the scheme.
The meeting to review the progress of DBT, was addressed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh, Petroleum Minister Veerappa Moily besides Ahluwalia.
At the meeting, the DMs apprised the ministers and officials of the progress of the scheme in their area including 43 districts where the scheme is operational since January 1.
The DBT scheme is to be rolled out in 78 more districts on July 1, after which it would have covered one fifth of the country.
According to Ahluwalia the meeting would help the government to find out where it “needed to concentrate to remove hurdles”.
In reply to a question, Ahluwalia said, “It is a periodic meeting. The idea is to take stock and to let district collectors know that this is extremely important initiative of the government, which we are giving high priority to..More importantly, to hear from them which bits are working and where there are problems.”
“I don’t think that there are any fundamental problems. The issue is that we want this (scheme) to be rolled out on timeline and problems tend to be of very detailed kind,” he added.
According to Ahluwalia, the government is working out an arrangement where beneficiaries would be covered under the DBT even if they don’t have Aadhaar number.
Under this arrangement according to him, the payment would be made either through Aadhaar payment gateway where beneficiary has Aadhaar linked bank account or transfered directly into his or her bank account through a different gateway.
“It turns out that quite a large number of them now have bank accounts and a smaller number (of beneficiaries) actually have Aadhaar numbers with them.
“And so, we are working out a system where a benefit payment will go to the Aadhaar gateway, where the Aadhaar number is linked to a bank account …If a bank account is not linked to Aadhaar number, it will through a different gateway”, he said. (PTI)
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