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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | 'Direct benefit transfer' pilot project for food subsidies turns a burden in Jharkhand -Sanjoy Dey

'Direct benefit transfer' pilot project for food subsidies turns a burden in Jharkhand -Sanjoy Dey

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published Published on Feb 16, 2018   modified Modified on Feb 16, 2018
-Hindustan Times

Under DBT system, beneficiaries are required to collect food subsidy in cash from their bank and then buy food grain from local ration shops at market price

Septuagenarian Deventi Devi visited her bank, 6km from her village, thrice this month to withdraw her food subsidy credited by the government in her account under the Centre’s direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme. She returned empty-handed each time because the bank said the subsidy amount had not been credited.

This practice has become a routine affair for the old lady ever since Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das launched the state’s first pilot for the direct transfer of food subsidy in Ranchi’s Nagri block, 20km from the capital city, last October.

The pilot covers around 12,000 cardholders and 52,000 beneficiaries, and seeks to replace subsidised rations with cash. It is the biggest pilot of its kind; smaller pilot projects for such transfers, covering up to a thousand people, have been launched in Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

Under DBT system, beneficiaries are required to collect food subsidy in cash from their bank and then buy food grain from local ration shops at market price, which is around Rs 32 per kg. Until now, they used to buy the same from the ration shop at Rs1 per kg. A visit to the villages where the project is operational underlines the problems people face in getting the subsidy and then the ration. In most cases, people claim there is no SMS alert about the money being transferred, leading to multiple visits to the bank.

In some, the money is transferred into the account of a child within the household while the ration can be procured through the finger impression of some other person in the family.

Deventi, who suffers from a hearing impairment due to old age, is ferried to the bank on a motorcycle, as there is no other transport facility in her village.

“We spend at least Rs 20 worth of fuel on each trip to the bank to withdraw a meagre Rs 1,106 food subsidy for six members of the family. We have to visit the bank three to four times every month to get the subsidy,” said her son Bigul Mahto, 55, a vegetable grower. There are other issues too. “Since my thumb impression is registered with the biometric system in the PDS (ration) shop , I had submitted my bank account under the DBT system. But the subsidy amount is credited into my mother’s account. I don’t know how,” he adds.

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Hindustan Times, 15 February, 2018, https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/direct-benefit-transfer-pilot-project-for-food-subsidies-turns-a-burden-in-jharkhand/story-vhmptJS0H3OThCZB0a82MI_amp.html


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