The Prime Minister has called for developing a digital platform that takes benefits of the Aadhaar-based Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) programme to the targeted beneficiaries seamlessly and in an error-free manner.
Speaking at a high-level meeting to review the progress of Aadhaar and Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also asked all the departments concerned to ensure that as the new mechanism is put in place, they do not result in causing inconvenience to any beneficiary, according to a government statement.
Modi also advised the officials present there to test their systems carefully before implementing them on a wider scale.
In the course of the two-hour meeting, the Prime Minister was informed about the progress made in Aadhaar number generation and seeding of official databases with Aadhaar numbers to streamline the process of identification of beneficiaries, and to ensure proper targeting of benefits to the people, according to a government press statement.
He was informed that in 2015-16, an amount of over Rs. 61,000 crore was distributed to over 30 crore beneficiaries, using Direct Benefit Transfer scheme. This includes over Rs. 25,000 crore in MGNREGS, and over Rs. 21,000 crore in PAHAL (for LPG), the statement said.
DBT has resulted in significant savings across welfare schemes. It has also resulted in weeding out of duplicate beneficiaries. For instance, over 1.6 crore bogus ration cards have been deleted, resulting in savings of about Rs. 10,000 crore. Similarly, 3.5 crore duplicate beneficiaries were weeded out in the PAHAL scheme, resulting in savings of over Rs. 14,000 crore in 2014-15 alone. In MGNREGS too, a saving of Rs. 3,000 crore (roughly 10 per cent) has been estimated in 2015-16. Several States and Union Territories, too, have achieved significant savings through DBT, it added.
The Prime Minister was also informed of the steps taken towards a unique identifier for NGOs. Over 71,000 NGOs are now registered with the NGO Darpan portal maintained by NITI Aayog.
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