Cash transfer of subsidy scheme to take-off in January
24 Nov 2012
The UPA government's ambitious cash transfer of subsidies directly to the beneficiaries' bank accounts will start rolling out across 51 districts from the beginning of 2013 and will cover the entire nation by the end of the year.
Finance minister P. Chidambaram said in Pune on Saturday that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will chair a meeting of the cash transfer committee in Delhi on Monday to prepare the ground for implementing the project from January 1, 2013.
''We are going to launch the ambitious programme of payout of direct cash subsidy to people through the Aadhaar system in 51 districts across 15 states,'' Chidambaram said at Bancon 2012, a banking conference in Pune. ''We want the roll-out (of direct transfer of subsidy) to be completed by the end of 2013,'' the finance minister said.
Chidambaram said the government wants every family in the country to have a bank account. The direct transfer of cash subsidies to bank accounts was being done on the basis of Aadhaar, the unique identification number that is being given to all Indians.
These subsidies are in the form of payments towards food, fertiliser and petroleum and add up to about Rs1.8 lakh crore. The direct transfer of subsidy is expected to curb wastage and pilferage of subsidies by middle-men.
Referring to GDP growth, Chidambaram said that India was facing a difficult situation with growth having declined to 5.5 per cent in the first quarter of the current fiscal. The second quarter is also expected to see a similar growth rate.
