Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme To Be Re-Launched By The Government

Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme To Be Re-Launched By The Government
The Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme will be relaunched after being modified, as per an announcement by the Union Government on 19th October. The DBT implementation will be in mission mode between 10th November this year and January 1st next year in as many as 54 districts. Currently, beneficiaries with bank accounts under Aadhaar or the Jan Dhan Yojana will get subsidies on LPG directly through their accounts. Those beneficiaries who are external to the scheme and possess neither an Aadhaar identity card nor bank account through Jan Dhan Yojana will use the old cylinder system for the time being.

The 54 shortlisted disctricts which will fall under the scheme include Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Puducherry and Punjab. The re-launching of the scheme started by the UPA government is a new development. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley indicated that the scheme will be launched again because "The UPA Government had only linked it to the Aadhar platform; there were some legal issues including court orders which had prevented the effective implementation to the scheme. We had launched the Jan Dhan Yojana and so far under the Jan Dhan Yojana six crore and two lakhs accounts have been opened.”

He also told media personnel that"Therefore, we have decided in addition to the Aadhar platform all those who have a bank account would also get the LPG subsidy in their accounts directly. It will be transferred to their accounts. We hope by the time the scheme is implemented a very large number of people we were targeting have a bank account," he added.

Jaitley also stated that "There will be in a mission mode an implementation of the Direct Benefit Transfer from November 10, 2014 to January 1, 2015. The quantum of subsidy will be decided by the government, those who are still left outside the scheme that is those who have neither an Aadhar identity or a bank account, will be very few of them, the old cylinder system would still be available for sometime for them."

Analysts quoted by certain media agencies have stated that the pan Indian rollout of the scheme when completed could lead to savings above INR 10,000 crore. They are assuming that relevant variables will remain at FY14 levels. Fall in global crude oil process will cause overall subsidies bill to reach INR 28,000 crore as against INR 46,458 crore in 2013. The relaunch of the direct benefit transfer scheme is with the aim of annual savings of INR 10,000 to 12,000 in subsidy on the fuel between the government and upstream oil firms.
Post your comment