Haryana Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Krishan Kumar Bedi on Sunday said taking the Aadhaar-linked Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) route for the disbursal of various social welfare benefits and subsidies to the people on various counts has resulted in net saving of about Rs 445 crore to the State Government.
He said that in the process, it had succeeded in weeding out more than 9.7 lakh fake and ineligible beneficiaries under various schemes.
The State Government is estimated to have saved Rs 201 crore in terms of disbursal of various social security pensions with the deletion of names of 1.5 lakh ineligible beneficiaries. The number of applications for post-matric scholarships has seen a decline of 40 per cent due to strict investigation after joining with Aadhaar. This led to savings of Rs 110 crore, said the Minister
Bedi said that the State Government saved about
Rs 133 crore in terms of kerosene subsidy with six lakh fake and ineligible beneficiaries being deleted under the Aadhaar-based Direct Benefits Transfer scheme. As many as 2.2 lakh duplicate ration cards were also identified and cancelled through this process.
The Haryana Government started implementation of various schemes through DBT last year, and now we plan to bring as many as 73 schemes worth Rs 5,916.07 crore in 15 departments under DBT, he added.
The Minister said that Haryana is one of the top ranking states in the country with Aadhaar enrolment of 109 per cent in the above 18 years category. This provides a robust platform to meaningfully use Aadhaar as an identifier for benefits management and delivery of citizen services, he added.
The Aadhaar-induced savings are being channelised to cover the needy and genuine beneficiaries under social security schemes.
As many as 32.25 lakh beneficiaries have been covered under DBT and EBT while disbursing Rs 1,308.98 crore by 13 departments under 61 schemes in 2015-16 alone.
Bedi said that the Integrated Financial Management and Human Resources System has emerged as a common platform for use by all Government departments. Over the previous year, we have become capable of delivering 125 citizen services through a network of more than 3,000 Common Service Centres (CSC).
Haryana is committed to moving forward with greater impetus on e-governance. In line with the steps already initiated, the state plans to cover 100 per cent beneficiaries under DBT schemes for transfer of subsidy to ensure elimination of the twin bane of middle-men and ineligible beneficiaries, he added.