All About Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) Scheme

The Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme was launched by the government on January 1, 2013, in an effort to eliminate frauds and discrepancies in the public welfare schemes.

What is DBT?

Image Source

For a long time, beneficiaries of various social welfare schemes such as pension, LPG subsidy, etc. weren’t able to enjoy the benefits because of corruption. The middlemen who were responsible for transferring the money to the rightful individuals would fudge the records for their own profits. Thus, the government introduced DBT which allows the beneficiaries to get the money directly into their bank accounts on the basis of their Aadhaar.
DBT Rollout
DBT was launched on January 1, 2013, in 20 districts for social security pensions and scholarships only. It was decided that the government will review the progress over time and make changes accordingly.
In April 2013, DBT coverage was extended to 78 new districts in the country as per the recommendation of the then prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh.
As per the data with the ministry, the government saved Rs. 57,000 crores in FY17 through DBT, a big jump from the mere Rs. 10.71 crores that were saved during FY14, i.e., the first fiscal of the launch.
The following are the standard steps of DBT:

• Identification of the beneficiaries and updating their records in a digital database
• Opening the bank accounts of the eligible beneficiaries
• Enrolling the beneficiaries in Aadhaar
• Linking of beneficiaries’ Aadhaar with their bank accounts
• Transfer of funds

The following are some of the main things to know about DBT:

• As on Dec 2017, around 400 schemes have been identified under DBT from 46 ministries.
• The government is planning to add hundreds of other social welfare schemes under DBT as well. A recent report said that around 3,500 central and state government schemes could be covered by 2019. Out of these, some 3,000 schemes will be from the states, and around 500 from the center.
• A web portal dbtbharat.gov.in has been launched to centralize all the DBT schemes for easy data access and monitoring.