-The Indian Express The UPA’s cash transfer scheme — delivering over Rs.3.2 lakh crore in subsidies and welfare programmes to the poor, directly to their bank accounts — has raised fears in many quarters about the capacity of a rickety state apparatus to cope with messy implementation issues. Our collective self-confidence about being able to implement any new policy is so low today, we seem to be paralysed by the mere...

-Outlook Its ploy of Aadhar-hinged cash transfer may have won the Congress political points, but will it really be a game-changer?   State-Wise     40% of the 22 crore Aadhar numbers are in Andhra Pradesh (4.7 crore) and Maharashtra (4 crore)     20% is what the two politically sensitive, Congress-ruled states account for of the 51 districts where DCT will be rolled out     55 lakh Aadhar numbers in TMC-run West Bengal. BJP-ruled Gujarat (57...

-Outlook A scheme to credit kerosene subsidies to beneficiaries’ accounts flopped real big in Rajasthan Dharamvir Chaudhary’s fair price shop in Kot Kasim, Rajasthan, is deserted. A year ago the tehsil played host to an experiment by the government: residents were asked to buy kerosene—a fuel most of India’s poor use to cook and light lamps—at market price (Rs 50 a litre) from shops like Dharamvir’s. People were promised that the...

-The Economic Times The government is likely to shoot down the department of financial services’ (DFS) plan to appoint common banking correspondent companies for transferring cash to poor people, and replace it with a countrywide network of ‘micro ATMs’, as it seeks to finalise the last-mile payment architecture for cash transfers.   In a meeting on Monday evening, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh, UIDAI Chairman Nandan Nilekani, and Planning Commission officials met Finance...

-The Hindustan Times The direct cash transfer in 42 schemes to start from next year is old wine in new bottle with beneficiaries under these schemes already receiving money directly into their bank accounts. Finance minister P Chidambaram and rural development minister Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday announced that money under these 42 schemes of the central government would be transferred directly into bank accounts of beneficiaries in 51 districts from next January. The list...