-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said the direct transfer of cooking gas subsidies into the bank accounts of users will help the government cut its subsidy bill by around Rs 12,700 crore, or around a quarter of the funds spent last year. The minister used the successful transition to direct benefit transfer (DBT) system to argue for extending the scheme to other subsidies, something that...

-The Indian Express Government should devise a crop-neutral incentive structure to attract farmers to pulses over paddy.  Policymakers and consumers can rejoice in the light of the latest price data. Food inflation in particular has witnessed significant moderation. In May 2015, food prices were up by only 2.3 per cent at wholesale and 5 per cent at retail levels over May last year. The increases in minimum support prices for the...

-The Indian Express India’s largest nutrient maker tells The Indian Express how 11 crore farmers can directly receive subsidy now going to the industry. Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) of fertiliser subsidy to farmers is an eminently feasible proposition and the Narendra Modi government should lose no time in going ahead with its implementation, says US Awasthi of the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative (Iffco). “People interested in stalling DBT are giving all sorts of...

-The Indian Express The SC directive that Aadhaar can’t be made mandatory for any service — which the government can’t oppose until Aadhaar gets legal validity — has complicated the issue. On January 1, 2013, the Congress-led UPA government launched the Direct Benefits Transfer scheme, centred around the Aadhaar project begun a few years earlier. Teething troubles and implementation bottlenecks followed, the interest of the outgoing dispensation waned, and both Aadhaar...

It is difficult for a person to get aadhaar card/number if s/he does not have pre-existing proofs of identity and address. It has been revealed from a reply to RTI application that only 2.19 lakh aadhaar numbers have been issued to people who did not have any other prior identity proof, which is just 0.03% of total aadhaar numbers generated so far. The RTI reply dated 28 April, 2015 by the Unique...