Narendra Modi’s government has set reduction of wastage from social security schemes as one of its primary goals. However, inefficiencies in public service delivery will not be minimised if Indian ministries and departments don’t start working together, the former Chief Financial Officer of the Unique Identification Authority of India told FutureGov.
The government has recently revived a project to electronically transfer social benefits to beneficiaries’ bank accounts to cut down wastage in social security schemes. India plans to spend US$43 billion for food, fertilisers and fuel subsidies this financial year.
The success of this Direct Benefits Transfer project fundamentally depends on people having bank accounts and then the government being able to verify that the benefit transfers are made to the right person.
Progress on financial inclusion
The government has made progress on both accounts. In August, Prime Minister Modi launched the ‘Jan Dhan Yojana’ or ‘Scheme for People’s Wealth’ to open new bank accounts for households. The project has already hit its initial target and crossed 87.6 million new accounts this week.
The government is linking bank accounts with their owners’ unique identification numbers, known as Aadhaar, to authenticate the identity of the beneficiary. The government announced this week that it has linked 100 million bank accounts with Aadhaar numbers.
The Modi government has also exceeded expectations in the success of the Aadhaar project, said Ganga Kapavarapu, former Chief Financial Officer at the Unique Identity Authority of India, which leads the Aadhaar project. Over 720 million identification numbers have been created.
“There was a particular time when people felt that with the new [Modi] government, it [the Aadhaar project] may not continue with the same speed. Contrary to that, it has actually picked up far greater tempo”, she said. Kapavarapu is now Additional Deputy Comptroller and Auditor General at the Office of Comptroller and Auditor General.
Tight deadlines
The government has met resistance from officials with mandates and “stiff targets”, she said. “They are talking about completing the entire population by the middle of next year.” The initial target was to complete the project in 2016.
The government has mandated that all welfare schemes involving transfer of money, such as scholarships, pensions and subsidies, have to be completed through a direct transfer to the beneficiaries’ bank accounts, she added.
The government has set up a system to ensure that targets are being hit even at the district level, Kavarapu said. Ministries and departments are getting real-time data from the field on the Aadhaar numbers and bank accounts created, and how many bank accounts are linked with Aadhaar.
India’s push for financial inclusion is ultimately aimed at reducing the government’s subsidy bill for better financial management, which is a primary goal for Modi’s government, Kavarapu said.
Lack of sharing still a challenge
All of this - Aadhaar numbers, more bank accounts and direct benefit transfers - can only cut the government’s subsidy bill so much, if agencies don’t share more information. Although the government has said that it will transfer benefits through Aadhaar-linked bank accounts, it’s still possible that benefits are being transferred to ineligible or undeserving people, Kavarapu said.
“These benefits are all [being handled by] different departments with different databases, and they are not talking to each other,” said Kavarapu. For instance, someone who is drawing an old age pension should not be eligible for an employment benefit, but now it is possible that the same person is receiving both. “Aadhaar has only made sure that the same person doesn’t appear twice in that particular benefit’s list, but its quite possible that a person [who] is drawing an old age pension is also a beneficiary of the [employment scheme],” she said.
If the Aadhaar project is to ultimately help India improve the efficiency of its public services, ministries and departments will need to start talking to each other. “There could still be a need for integrating all databases,” Kavarapu admitted. This will happen eventually, she believes, because as more government services are driven to use the Aadhaar system, the need for integration will increase.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Medha Basu
Quelle/Source: futureGov, 19.12.2014
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