A meeting of the Executive Committee
on Direct Cash Transfers was held today by the Principal Secretary to the Prime
Minister along with the Cabinet Secretary. The
meeting was attended by the Secretaries and representatives of the
Departments of Financial Services, UIDAI
(Aadhaar), IT, Planning Commission,
Expenditure, Posts, Rural Development, Social Justice & Empowerment,
Tribal Affairs, Minority Affairs, Higher Education, School Education, Health &
Family Welfare, Women & Child Development, Labour & Employment,
Petroleum & Natural Gas, Fertilizers, and Food & Public Distribution.
The Prime Minister had recently
constituted a National Committee on Direct Cash Transfers under his
chairmanship and an Executive Committee on Direct Cash Transfers to give a
thrust to roll out a cash transfer programme across the country, leveraging the
Aadhaar platform.
The purpose of the meeting today was
to move forward and operationalise Direct Cash Transfers for which many steps
need to be taken. The necessary steps include (i) identification of areas where
Direct Cash Transfers can be introduced, (ii) establishing mechanisms for
preparing rollout plans for these areas, (iii) ensuring rapid rollout of
Aadhaar to achieve better coverage (at least 80%), (iv) ensuring universal
access to banking and financial inclusion and (v) setting up mechanisms to
enable cash transfers to actually take place. To facilitate all this, there is
a need to constitute other committees including a Technology Committee, a
Financial Inclusion Committee and Implementation Committees within each
Ministry so as to ensure coordination and quick implementation.
The
agenda for the meeting was to:
i.
Explain to all committee members the rationale and purpose of
Direct Cash Transfers and the institutional architecture that has been put in
place for the rollout.
ii.
Finalise the constitution and composition of the Implementation
Committees.
iii.
Identify areas for introducing Direct Cash Transfers and make
arrangements for finalising roadmaps for rollout in each area, keeping in view
the roadmap already prepared for Direct Cash Transfers of LPG Subsidy.
Based on the extensive discussions
that took place and the issues raised by the participants, the following decisions were taken in the meeting:
i.
All departments engaged in transferring benefits to individual
beneficiaries will quickly move to an
electronic Direct Cash Transfer system, based on an Aadhaar Payment Bridge/
Platform.
ii.
They will identify the schemes to move to this system and also
prepare a roadmap with timelines so that the rollout is smooth and fast. The roadmap for each scheme will broadly
have the following timelines:
a.
51
districts - from 1 January 2013
b.
18
states - from 1 April 2013
c.
16
states - from 1 April 2014 or earlier.
iii.
The list of schemes, roadmaps, and timelines will be sent to the
Planning Commission and PMO by 20 November 2012
iv.
UIDAI
will set up a dedicated cell of technical experts in UIDAI to
facilitate Aaadhaar enabled Direct Cash Transfers and help individual Ministries.
v.
Department of Financial Services will go for universal Financial Inclusion through individual Bank Accounts for all
in line with the roadmap.
vi.
UIDAI will rollout Aadhaar speedily in line with the roadmap.
vii.
Departments will work towards digitising
their databases quickly, particularly at the state level with the help of
state governments, DeITy and NIC to ensure convergence.
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