Post offices can play a crucial role in making the Direct Benefits Transfer scheme a success, the Minister for Rural Development, Jairam Ramesh, said.
He said the future of these schemes was also dependent on reforming and expanding the role of both business correspondents (BCs) and co-operative banks.
“Increasing the numbers of BCs will introduce competition,” he said, adding that this would help control corruption.
Ramesh also underlined the need to de-link direct cash transfer schemes from Below Poverty Line and Above Poverty Line-centric implementation and instead base these on Aadhaar cards after ensuring proper distribution of such cards.
The Government’s move to link welfare schemes to Aadhaar cards has invited a lot of flak from civil society activists such as Aruna Roy, who recently resigned from the National Advisory Council-headed by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
Ramesh was addressing a conference organised by SEWA and UNICEF to discuss the positive outcome of pilot projects on unconditional cash transfer schemes in some villages of Madhya Pradesh. Unconditional transfers are no-strings attached cash grants given to individuals or households in villages identified as highly vulnerable.
However, while praising the results of the pilot projects, which showed higher savings and expenditure on education and health by those who got unconditional cash, Ramesh was sceptical about the viability of implementing such a scheme on a large scale.