Cash transfer hurdles for NREGA workers

The government should do an honest assessment of the utility of the Aadhaar-based payment system and ensure safeguards in welfare transfers through private payments banks

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley recently wrote a blog on the virtues of Aadhaar. Timed with the introduction of a bill in Parliament to enable private companies to access people’s Aadhaar details (prohibited by the Supreme Court in a ruling in September 2018), it reiterates how Aadhaar has helped to save Rs 90,000 crore. He also argues that Aadhaar-based payment of welfare benefits (loosely referred to as “direct benefit transfer” or DBT) has removed middlemen and ensured direct payment of subsidies into people’s bank accounts. He seems unbothered with the fact that the claims of savings have never stood any scrutiny. 

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