The government is setting effective social safety networks like Adahaar-card based direct transfer scheme in order to combat poverty in the country, said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday.
Addressing at the annual general meeting (AGM) of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) held in Delhi, the prime minister said the government is deploying Aadhaar-based services rapidly in order to provide transfer funds directly for scholarships, pensions, health, wages and many other benefits for the needy individuals.
"We should see the major drive we have launched recently towards direct cash transfers. The drive is to transfer government benefits directly to the bank accounts of individual beneficiaries," he said.
"The unique identification program of having Aadhaar numbers for all residents is going to be the basis of this huge transformation," said the prime minister, adding the step will help in reducing financial leakages by eliminating middlemen.
"This will reduce leakages, cut down corruption, eliminate middlemen, target beneficiaries better and speed up transfer of benefits to eligible individuals. It will, at one go, bring in crores of people into our banking system and mainstream them into our economy," he said.
The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has asked all ministries to get ready with all preparations "on a war footing" for the launch of the government's ambitious and game-changing Direct Cash Transfer (DCT) scheme Jan 1, 2013.
With just a fortnight left, the directive came after a meeting, chaired by Pulok Chatterji, principal secretary in the PMO, get the review for the ongoing preparations so far and discuss in detail how direct transfers could benefit the 34 identified schemes in the 43 districts initially selected will be implemented by the fixed timeline.
The meeting was a follow-up to the meeting of the National Committee on Direct Cash Transfers chaired by the prime minister Nov 26.
-With inputs from IANS
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