Cash transfer as substitute for state service provision is a dangerous recipe for callously anti-poor and corrupt governance. THE staggering number of recent articles, papers and books on the virtues of giving cash in place of public services to the poor has created an impression that a sort of epidemic has broken out. Economists, policymakers, bureaucrats and newspaper commentators are all infected by it and are in turn infecting others. The central...

Amid technical and infrastructural constraints, Maharashtra has rolled out 1.2 million Aadhaars, but the beneficiaries have been able to make little use of these numbers Ashok Bhil, a 25-year-old graduate from Navalpur, 7 Km from Tembhli, is disappointed with the way the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is rolling out Aadhaar in Maharashtra. Last September, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government chose Tembhli, a small village in the predominantly tribal Nandurbar...

In line with finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s budget announcement on Monday that the government is looking at direct cash transfers as an alternative to the current subsidy on kerosene and fertilizers and to prevent leakages, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is planning to open Aadhaar-linked bank accounts for the purpose. These can be used for other financial transactions as well. The authority is in the process of empanelling banks...

This article documents and then examines the various benefits that, it is claimed, will flow from linking the Unique Identity number with the public distribution system and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. It filters the unfounded claims, which arise from a poor understanding of how the PDS and NREGS function, from the genuine ones. On the latter, there are several demanding conditions that need to be met in order...

Smart card technology can be used to streamline India's unwieldy PDS. But it is yet to prove itself under real world challenges. Smart cards have become the latest buzzword to remedy India's public distribution system (PDS) — one of the largest food grain delivery networks in the world with more than 500,000 ‘ration' shops. Electronic voting machines have streamlined Indian elections. Credit cards, which can be swiped for payment at any...