Direct Benefit Transfer didn't benefit Congress in recent polls

Touted as a big-ticket game-changer for the Congress, whose electoral fortunes have seen a huge decline, the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme came a cropper in the recently held assembly elections in the four states where the scheme is being implemented.

Of the five states that went to polls recently, DBT was being implemented in 154 assembly segments of Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. But the the Congress managed to win only 17 seats whereas the BJP netted 107, and 30 went to other parties, including Independents.

Interestingly, in Delhi, where the Sheila Dikshit government had taken up the DBT scheme on a war-footing in 63 assembly segments with Rs103 crore in cash transfers, the Congress could win only seven seats while the BJP grossed 30 and the AAP 26 seats.

In Rajasthan, where the Congress was left licking its wounds after its worst-ever defeat, direct cash transfers did not click at all. Of the 49 assembly constituencies where DBT is being implemented, the Congress could win only three while the BJP took home 39. The story was no different in Madhya Pradesh. Of the 39 DBT assembly seats, the Congress could emerge victorious in only six seats. The BJP won in 33.

Significantly, all these three states are those where the government is dependent on the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) for data collection of the beneficiaries. It appears, along with the DBT, the UDAI has not achieved its promised success.

The story is similar in Chhattisgarh where the registrar general of India was collecting data for the National Population Register. In six DBT assembly seats, the Congress won only one. The rest five went to the BJP.

Officials working on implementing DBT schemes told dna that the DBT scheme was pushed through in a hurry. “How can a scheme work if you want to complete five years’ job in a matter of months? The scheme was implemented against enormous odds, like non-availability of records of probable beneficiaries; digitalising details – giving Aadhar numbers to them and then seeding it with bank accounts for cash transfers. All this work have still got miles to go,” said an official.

A Congress minister said that the heavy reliance on the DBT wouldn’t have worked for two reasons – one, work on it started very late, and that too in a shoddy manner; second, the scheme did not take into account how the poor who are getting the benefit would perceive it as. “One should not see such schemes as a grosser for the party that is ruling at the Centre. We have seen that the benefit deriving out of such schemes depends on the perception of the beneficiary. It can help the party that is ruling the state government. In any case, it’s a telling comment on Nandan Nilekani. The party needs to rethink,” the minister said.

However, Dr Arvind Virmani, former chief economic advisor in the ministry of finance and former executive director of International Monetary Fund (IMF), is not ready to call it quits. “It is too early to judge the efficacy of DBT scheme as it’s still under implementation and a lot remains to be done.
Election models based on such schemes are very complex and need much more data and information about other schemes besides DBT to come to a conclusion,” said Virmani.

Poll vault: Numbers say it all
In Delhi, where the Sheila Dikshit government had taken up the DBT scheme on a war-footing in 63 assembly segments with Rs103 crore in cash transfers, the Congress could win only seven seats while the BJP grossed 30 and the AAP 28 seats. In Rajasthan, where the Congress was left licking its wounds after its worst-ever defeat, direct cash transfers did not click at all. Of the 49 assembly constituencies where DBT is being implemented, the Congress could win only three while the BJP took home 39. The story was no different in Madhya Pradesh. Of the 39 DBT assembly seats, the Congress could emerge victorious in only six seats. The BJP won in 33.