During our field trips, at least in the MNNREGA programme, we could not find evidence of Aadhaar-based cash transfers having the ability to plug leakages completely. Although identity-based transfers would weed out ghost recipients, the cash transfer scheme had no way of dealing with inflated muster rolls in the first place. Hence, leakages may still happen with collusion between the beneficiaries and the contractors and government Officials.
The other systemic weakness we construed was dependence on the integrity of the Business Correspondents [BCs] for the system to work effectively. Given the evidence of banks’ preference for
Read moreUIDAI’s Direct Cash Subsidy Transfer Not Panacea – Massive Corruption Still Exists