Focus on direct benefit transfer errors may hurt real, potential beneficiaries: Report

The government's attempt to eliminate ineligible candidates from its welfare transfer may eventually lead to exclusion of some potential beneficiaries, anticipated a study by a research house.

The so-called direct benefit transfers (DBT), kicked off in 2013, have resulted in an estimated gain of Rs 2.23 lakh crore to the exchequer from launch until March 2021. DBT seeks to ensure timely delivery of government doles to accurately identified beneficiaries through the use of online banking and Aadhaar infrastructure.

“The DBT architecture has been designed to eliminate ghost beneficiaries, with the main objective of reducing ‘leakages’ in welfare delivery,” Dvara Research said in the summary of its State of Exclusion Report. “However, the focus on reduction of inclusion errors, i.e., ensuring that ineligible or undeserving citizens do not get access to government welfare programmes, comes at a cost.”

The report, released on June 3, assess last-mile delivery challenges across a variety of cash transfer schemes, through surveys, case studies and stakeholder interviews spanning seven states. Dvara Research partnered with CMIE, Haqdarshak, Graam Vani and India Migration Now for the surveys.

The nuts and bolts that underpin the DBT, like complete digitisation of records, seeding of Aadhaar with beneficiaries’ bank accounts, cash-out architecture, are not without fault lines, Dvara Research said.

“Our research reveals exclusionary factors such as poor access point density (for enrolment/cash-out), data-entry errors in digitised payment processing, and cumbersome documentation requirements are exacerbated by sub-optimal accountability and grievance redress mechanisms,” it said.

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Government departments, financial service providers, statutory bodies and civil society organisations need to unclog the DBT pipeline to ensure that eligible beneficiaries do not have to run pillar to post.

After all, in the financial year 2021-22, a total of 717 crore direct benefit transactions took place, amounting to a whooping Rs 6.30 lakh crore. As many of 53 ministries and 313 schemes utilised the infrastructure for cash and in-kind transfers.

Dvara Research examined schemes for national rural employment guarantee, housing, farmer income support, old-age pension, maternal support, and pandemic relief package for the poorest.

It had recommended a raft of corrective measures on the ease of enrolment, processing of benefits and boosting the reach of the cash-out points. It also suggests the creation of a common grievance redress cell for all DBT schemes across the state, district, and block levels.