Putting up a brave face, the State Government may even go on taking back the consent given to the Centre for implementing direct benefit transfer in ration. The scheme providing money directly into the bank accounts of the beneficiaries covered under the National Food Security Act against food grains has been implemented at Nagri near Ranchi on pilot basis.
Minster for Food and Civil Supplies Saryu Roy, expressing his anguish over glitches coming in the way of seamless delivery of subsidy to the villagers, said that the project was rolled out without having desired infrastructure in place.
“Use of technology is fine. People sitting at top positions at Niti Aayog may pat their back about saving a certain amount from going waste. But if the step is running away with rights of the people then what is its useIJ First we have to fix the system and keep the opinion in mind of those for whom the scheme is. The policymakers should understand the ground reality. If they don’t want to roll back out of their ego then we would withdraw the consent given for the sake of our people, their rights and ease,” said Roy addressing a seminar organised by industry body ASSOCHAM on Friday.
Recalling the earlier efforts taken by the Department in this direction and objecting to the provisions made for DBT in ration, the Minister said that rules were needed to be amended before it was implemented at Nagri. “We had informed the Centre and Niti Aayog in writing that several provisions of three different laws namely NFSA, DBT Act and Pahal Act coming into play here in DBT in ration are contradictory. This would fail the system. Banking connectivity is missing, banks are missing. How come poor villagers would go again and again at the cost of their livelihood to fetch their subsidy from banks,” maintained Roy and advocated for ‘technology with human face’. Also criticising the socio-economic and caste census whose data is being used for implementing several welfare schemes, including Ujjwala yojna, the Minister said that over 50 per cent of data in the survey is wrong.