New Delhi, March 18 Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently pointed out in his interview with popular American podcaster Lex Fridman, that he has already implemented measures for government efficiency by preventing the wastage of social welfare funds in India much like the goal that is envisaged in President Donald Trump's DOGE programme just introduced in the US.
PM Modi highlighted that when he came to power, he introduced the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) system for social welfare which eliminated fake, non-existent beneficiaries of various schemes that were resulting in massive amounts of funds being siphoned out of the system by corrupt middlemen.
"After I took office in 2014, I observed that back then, we weren't part of many global discussions, not like how President Trump and DOGE are being talked about today. But let me give you an example so you can see the kind of work that was done. I noticed that the benefits of certain government schemes, especially welfare programmes, were being exploited by so many people who never even existed in real life," PM Modi told Fridman.
According to senior officials, by March 2023, the Modi government's model of allocating social welfare funds through DBT had saved around Rs 3.48 lakh crore.
As nearly Rs 64,000 crore are being saved each year now with the plugging of leakages due to fake withdrawals by corrupt elements, the total savings now add up to around Rs 5 lakh crore, a senior official said.
Incidentally, this is what the DOGE programme led by Elon Musk has found in the US where social security benefits were being made to people who were not alive any more.
The DBT model based on Aadhaar-based direct transfers to bank accounts has eliminated middlemen and ensured money reaches directly to the beneficiaries.
According to senior officials, the savings are evident across duplicate LPG connections for claiming subsidies, fake ration cards and job cards under the MGNREGA rural employment scheme.
For instance, Rs 42,534 crore was saved by the deletion of 7.1 lakh fake job cards in MGNREGA in 2022-23. Similarly, Rs 73,443 crore was saved by the elimination of 4.15 crore duplicate, fake, non-existent or inactive LPG connections.
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