Transfers of over Rs 26.5L crore in Central schemes made since inception of DBT route

The JAM Trinity - Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar and Mobile numbers - has allowed the government to offer support to identified households in a targeted and less distortive way in the form of direct benefit transfer (DBT), the Economic Survey for 2022-23 has said.

Since the inception of DBT, cumulative transfers of over Rs 26.5 lakh crore in respect of Central schemes have been made through the DBT route.

In this process, total savings of over Rs 2.2 lakh crore have accrued as on March 31, 2021, for Central schemes alone due to the removal of 9.4 crore duplicate, fake/non-existent beneficiaries across databases, the Survey said.

With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and the imposition of lockdown and enforcement of social distancing norms, the DBT ecosystem faced a tough trial and emerged as a means of relief to millions of citizens whose livelihoods were impacted.

DBT played a major role in sustaining life, especially for the underprivileged segments of society, helping millions by providing immediate relief. Cash transfers under Central schemes like PM-KISAN, MGNREGS, National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP), Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY), NRLM, National Health Mission (NHM), scholarship schemes of various ministries through the National Scholarship Portal (NSP) and food subsidy under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana and Atma Nirbhar Bharat Package were a big relief for all the adversely affected masses of India during the Covid-19 period.

To make DBT schemes more accessible and transparent, major DBT schemes are being end-to-end digitised (EED) with provision for online and mobile-based access. 170 and 150 Central Government DBT schemes are EED and available on Unified Mobile Application for New Age Governance (UMANG) mobile platform respectively. Similarly, over 1000 States/UTs DBT schemes are EED, the Survey said.

For citizens who do not have access to smartphones, services available on UMANG are also available in assisted mode through Common Service Centres (CSCs) across India. The citizen experience in accessing DBT schemes through the UMANG app is markedly rich since UMANG offers a well-catalogued bouquet of services in multiple Indian languages to cater to a wide audience.

India's successful implementation of DBT has won praise from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, among other international organizations, for efficiently providing support (subsidies, food grain, and cash benefits directly) to large masses at low income levels (85 per cent of rural households and 69 per cent of urban households).