BackGovt saved ₹1.7 trillion via direct transfer of subsidies, says President
DBT removed duplicate and fake beneficiaries, thus plugging leakages.About 450 schemes linked to DBT, including for cooking gas, rural employment, fertilizer subsidy,
PremiumNew Delhi: The government has saved as much as ₹1.7 trillion through direct transfer of subsidies to genuine beneficiaries till December, 2019, President Ram Nath Kovind said on Friday.
“An amount of over ₹9 lakh crore has been directly transferred to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries through DBT (direct benefit transfer), during the last 5 years. By plugging the leakages, my government has saved about ₹1.7 lakh crore from going into the wrong hands," Kovind said in his address to the joint sitting of Parliament at the beginning of the Budget session.
Direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme, which was implemented in January 2013, has resulted in removal of duplicate and fake beneficiaries, thus plugging leakages. As a result, the government has been able to target the genuine and deserving beneficiaries and eliminate middlemen.
Kovind further said about 450 schemes have been linked to DBT, including for cooking gas, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS), Ayushman Bharat, fertilizer subsidy, among others, by using the JAM Trinity or the Jan-Dhan, Aadhaar and Mobile trinity.
“Today, more than 121 crore people in the country have Aadhaar cards and about 60 crore people possess RuPay cards. A record value of ₹2 lakh crore has been transacted through UPI (Unified Payments Interface) in December 2019," Kovind said.
The government has been able to save as much as ₹28,699 crore in the current fiscal, between April and December, official data showed.
Any cut in subsidies, which remains one of the main contributors to India’s fiscal deficit, is expected to help improve the country’s sovereign ratings.
In 2018-19, as many as many as 590 million individuals gained from the government’s DBT scheme, under which subsidy is directly transferred to the beneficiaries’ bank account.
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