Direct cash transfer may remain elusive for UPA-II
On Wednesday, food minister KV Thomas said: “There is a large number of poor families who do not have savings bank accounts. So, launching direct cash transfer across the country would be difficult.” As a result, the second phase of direct cash transfer for kerosene, fertiliser and food using the Aadhaar platform is likely to get delayed beyond the government's current tenure.
Banks have said their IT systems are not fully geared yet to implement cash transfers into bank accounts. Another problem is that they are yet to link existing bank accounts to the Aadhaar numbers. (The RBI recognised Aadhaar for both identity and address proof only on Tuesday.) Sources said that opening new bank accounts for Aadhaar-holders in the targeted 51 districts will take at least 2-3 months, making it difficult to implement the cash transfer scheme.
While banks have told the finance ministry that they will be unable to implement the scheme, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) also accepts that direct cash transfers in districts with less than 80% Aadhaar penetration will be a tall order.
In fact, the Planning Commission in its recent report has said that the integration of Aadhaar into government programmes will increase from 2% coverage of participants in 2012-13 to 100% coverage in 2018- 2019. Sources in the fertiliser ministry say the government would be
Be the first to comment.
