Cash transfer under Central schemes directly to start by April

New Delhi: Government will start cash transfer under all Central schemes directly to beneficiaries by April. The finance ministry, in an office memorandum, said it is imperative that Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) may be extended beyond the transfers from the Centre directly to individuals to all schemes and projects that have any component of cash benefits transfer to individual beneficiaries. [caption id=“attachment_2090823” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Cash transfer soon. Flickr/Andrew Middleton[/caption] “Ministry/Department will prepare a digitised list of all beneficiaries for the same. The list will be populated with Aadhaar number by June 30, 2015. E-transfer of funds will start in all schemes not later than April, 2015. The deadline for this task would be April 30, 2015,” it said. The architecture and framework for direct cash transfers was put in place for rolling out direct cash transfers across the country. Initially few schemes, like scholarships, pensions and other benefits were taken up in selected districts in the first phase. Presently, Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) in 35 schemes and DBTL (PAHAL) have been expanded across the entire country. Meanwhile, CRISIL said DBT will likely prove to be a game changer in food subsidy. “We estimate that DBT could help the government save as much as 20 percent (or Rs 25,000 crore) in food subsidy expenditure by eliminating costs associated with procuring, distributing and storing foodgrains,” it said. Moreover, it said DBT will help bring millions of poor households that currently do not have access to PDS into the food subsidy net. “We estimate that at fiscal 2016 prices, the cash transfers under the DBT will amount to almost Rs 5,800 per year for a family of five, which will implicitly raise their disposable income,” Crisil said. PTI