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.
The
Prime Minister will be holding the first meeting of the National Committee on
Direct Cash Transfers on 26 November 2012 where the roadmap and timelines will
be presented.
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