As the Centre plans to roll out the direct subsidy transfer to beneficiaries’ bank accounts for lPG from October 1, the agenda topped the meeting of Deputy Commissioners called in Delhi on Monday.
Senior officials representing all the seven districts of Jharkhand, where the ‘game changer’ direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme has been introduced in two phases, also put forth issues coming in making the scheme operational.
“The meeting saw sharing of experiences received during the first phase of the scheme and strategies to be adopted in the forthcoming second phase. All the stakeholders such as lead district managers of banks, UID officials and officials of concerned ministries exchanged their views. Rolling out of the scheme for lPG also came for discussion specially,” said Ramgarh DC Amitabh Kaushal over phone from the National Capital.
Jharkhand’s Seraikela-Kharsawan, Ranchi, Ramgarh and Hazaribagh are on the list of districts where the DBT scheme was introduced during the first phase.
later the Prime Minister Office induced Khunti, lohardaga and Bokaro in the second list where the scheme is to be rolled out from July 1, 2013.
Explaining further, Amitabh Kaushal said that most of the districts have come across with several issues in implementing the scheme that assures cash deposits directly into beneficiaries’ bank accounts; shunning or at least limiting the scope of pilferage.
‘There are issues related to bank account opening, their seeding with Aadhaar numbers and others. Some are related to policy matters and some are technical ones,’ added the DC.
He further says, ‘These issues flagged in the meeting and solutions related to those were also discussed,’ added the DC.
Bank of India is the lead bank in six districts that has been listed for the roll out.
‘Six lDMs have gone there to attend the meeting. Making the cash transfer a smooth process is the only target and the matter will be discussed in details,’ said Tarlochan Singh, Zonal Manager of Bank of India.
The Centre, on March 4, had issued instruction to the banks for seeding customers’ bank accounts with Aadhaar numbers without any delay. ‘Dereliction of duty’ also attracted ‘prompt and adequate action’.
Though, some DCs also gave a slip to the meeting for various reasons.
“The scheme is to be rolled out in the second phase in lohardaga. We have sent our DDC for the meeting and based on the feedback received over there we would run the programme here,” said lohardaga DC SB Ram. Seraikela-Kharsawan represented by Poonam, district coordinator for DBT, as the DC is on leave and the DDC had prior engagements.
Ranchi also sent a junior official Delhi as President Pranab Mukherjee is visiting the capital on Monday. Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh, Petroleum Minister Veerappa Moily and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia addressed the officials.