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POST OFFICES KEY TO SUCCESS
OF CASH TRANSFER SCHEMES:
JAIRAM RAMESH

Post offices can play a crucial role in making the Direct Benefits Transfer scheme a
success, the Minister for Rural Development, Jairam Ramesh,said.
He said the future of these schemes was also dependent
on reforming and expanding the role of both business
correspondents (BCs) and co-operative banks.
“Increasing the numbers of BCs will introduce competition,” he
said, adding that this would help control corruption.
Ramesh also underlined the need to de-link direct cash
transfer schemes from Below Poverty Line and Above Poverty
Line-centric implementation and
instead base these on Aadhaar cards after ensuring proper
distribution of such cards.
The Government’s move to link welfare schemes to Aadhaar
cards has invited a lot of flak from civil society activists such
as Aruna Roy, who recently resigned from the National
Advisory Council-headed by UPA
chairperson Sonia Gandhi.Ramesh was addressing a
conference organised by SEWA and UNICEF to discuss the positive outcome of pilot
projects on unconditional cash
transfer schemes in some villages of Madhya Pradesh.
Unconditional transfers are no strings attached cash grants given to individuals or
households in villages identified as highly vulnerable.
However, while praising the results of the pilot projects,
which showed higher savings and expenditure on education and health by those who got
unconditional cash, Ramesh was sceptical about the viability
of implementing such a scheme on a large scale.