‘Better housing, sanitation after direct cash transfer’

Direct cash transfer in some villages of Madhya Pradesh has yielded positive results, according to a report by Self Employed Women’s Association and UNICEF.

The findings of two pilot projects to identify the effects of cash grants on individual and family behaviour as well as community development in about 20 villages in Madhya Pradesh were released at a conference on ‘Unconditional Cash Transfers’ here on Thursday.

According to the findings, villages which received cash had better housing and sanitation quality, higher attendance in schools, and improvement in the quality of healthcare and economic activity.

For instance, 73 per cent of villagers had savings in financial institutions in villages that received cash, as opposed to 35 per cent in villages which did not. Also, villages which received cash saw an improvement of 29 per cent in school attendance in contrast to 14 per cent in villages which were not given cash.

The report also indicated that members of the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes displayed the greatest improvement in economic and social parameters due to cash transfers.

“Data gathered by the project suggests that the recipients preferred cash transfer schemes over other welfare schemes,” said Guy Standing, Professor, University of London, who is closely associated with the project.

The pilot projects targeted 20 villages around Indore, and two tribal villages. The projects were conducted over a period of 12-17 months, with eight villages and one tribal village which got unconditional direct cash transfers. The rest of the villages did not get direct cash transfer. In all, 50 per cent of the villages had access to the SEWA co-operative bank, while the rest were administered cash transfers from bank accounts in nationalised banks.

Stressing on the benefits of direct cash transfer, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, said its benefits in relation to other schemes such as public distribution system were immense.

“They prove two things. First of all, cash transfers can be organised. Second, when you give (transfer) the money (into beneficiaries account), it is simply not wasted or used for the wrong things,” he told reporters.