1. Direct Cash Transfer Scheme: Is It
For The Pockets Of The Poor Or
Our Politicians?
By Anush Garg

2. The DCH scheme
• The Congress party’s manifesto says: “The Indian National
Congress promises what it can do and will do what it
promises”.
• One of these promises was the Direct Cash Transfer Scheme,
which included 29 welfare schemes.
• Through the DCT scheme, the UPA government proposed to
bring direct change to 10 lakh households in 16 states.

3. At international level
• On the international agenda, the World Bank and United
Nations Development Programme have backed up the
flawed scheme set up by the UPA government; this support
comes despite the previous experiences of three countries-
Brazil, Chile and Mexico.
• The government is trying to use the current technology to
line up the procedure for the DCT.
• To make itself effective, the DCT scheme requires the help of
two pillars.
• Firstly, the ‘Aadhaar card’(Unique Identification Number) that
is to be used as an identity and the second are banks, which
would directly provide cash as subsidy to the poor and the
underprivileged.

4. Issues there of
• The Aadhar card is now allotted to 21 crore citizens of India,
but linking of Aadhar to bank accounts has still not been
completed.
• The private-owned banks have been reluctant towards
providing services in the rural areas, as they do not offer no-
frills since they are primarily in the finance sector to make
money and not for providing facilities which are the pre-
requisites for the DCT scheme.
• The government owned banks are in rural areas but the
branches available are already working over capacity.
• I therefore believe that the infrastructure must be built
before starting a scheme and not vice-versa.

5. The basic flaw
• The men of rural India should not be given direct advantage
by virtue of this scheme.
• It would be better if it is thoroughly meant for women, as
they are responsible for the household needs such as food,
health, education, kerosene, LPG etc.
• If the male member receives cash from the government on
behalf of the family; it is most likely that due to illiteracy and
scarcity of civic sense, he will spend the cash on liquor,
gambling and other things which will in turn harm the family.

6. A bribe in unknown form?
• Within this DCT scheme, the Government of India will
transfer approximately 3,20,000 crore rupees.
• The government is hurrying this scheme through to aim for
the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
• The ground realities are the several gaps in infrastructure,
like shortage of energy, IT infrastructure, technicians and the
involvement of private banks has forced the congress to
reduce its initial target from 51 districts to a mere 20 districts
in the first phase of DCT.
• Similarly, when FDI in retail was given permission by the
parliament, how the economy of our nation will manage to
support the major challenges brought by the retail giants.
• The big question that we are faced with is, “where will that
entire infrastructure come from?”

7. Hope not a set-up for another scam
• I therefore believe that this is another gaffe just like the
MGNREGA scheme which was meant to bring employment
to the unemployed.
• The same MGNREGA scheme where the government was
accused of a scam worth multi-million rupees.
• Can a similar scam happen under the DCT scheme where
3,20,000 crore rupees are at stake?

8. • Read more on Youth Ki Awaaz at http://bit.ly/XE9gJy