Next list of districts under DCT to be declared

BANGALORE, INDIA: While announcing the budget, Finance Minister, P Chidambaram, is likely to declare the list of the next 50 districts chosen for the next phase of the rollout of direct cash transfers (DCT), according to a report on livemint.

The Direct cash transfer scheme which began on a pilot basis on January 1 in 43 districts has been struggling to sort out the technical issues. Due to the operational issues involved, there has been a limited rollout in the second phase rollout.

As per Government estimates, Rs. 5.4 crore have been transferred to the bank accounts of beneficiaries under 13 schemes since January 1, this year. The government had shortlisted 26 schemes for the pilot.

As per a government official, there are other problems like the creation of banking infrastructure, digitization of beneficiary databases and the assignment of Aadhaar numbers required for the transfers by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) that needs to be addressed.