Seven months after the launch of the ambitious scheme of direct benefits transfer (DBT), the government has disbursed close to Rs 250 crore across various welfare programmes and made around 32 lakh payments using the Aadhaar Payment Bridge (APB).
As on March 31, 2013, the government was able to transfer only Rs 22.9 crore through the bridge to the beneficiaries? bank accounts due to poor coordination between various departments.
In fact, to expedite the implementation of his government?s flagship scheme, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called a review meeting of various ministries on Monday.
The meeting, which was earlier scheduled to be held on July 30, is likely to touch on the contours of the scheme and streamline the transfer of LPG subsidy through the Aadhaar platform. The DBT programme has covered over 2.8 million LPG transactions valued at R116 crore since its launch on June 1, 2013.
?The DBT is now being implemented across 121 districts and the review meeting will take stock of its progress and how it can be expanded to all the remaining districts,? said an official privy to the matter.
The APB is a repository of unique identification numbers of residents and their primary bank account numbers used for receiving all entitlement payments from various government agencies. It facilitates seamless transfer of all welfare scheme payments to beneficiary residents? Aadhaar Enabled Bank Account.
The bridge requires the use of Aadhaar number as the primary key for all entitlement payments thereby weeding out all ghost customers and ensuring that the benefits reach the intended beneficiaries.
The flagship programme, rolled out in 43 districts in its first phase in January, was expanded to include LPG subsidy in a phased manner to cover 20 districts by May 15. The scheme is to be further expanded to include post offices from October 1.
Besides, in order to improve inter-ministerial coordination and hasten the rollout of the scheme, the government had last week shifted the mission director of the scheme who overseed its implementation from the Planning Commission to the finance ministry.
During the review meeting of the scheme?s first phase in April, the PM had pointed out to the poor nature of tracking and monitoring systems in various departments.