The best way to kill a good idea is to implement it badly. One hopes that direct cash transfer of government funds under various welfare schemes to the bank accounts of their intended beneficiaries does not meet this fate. For, it is too good an idea to be discarded, notwithstanding all the vested interests that stand to lose from its success. All the more reason, then, for the Government to take extra care in demonstrating its feasibility on the ground, thereby silencing the prophets of doom – including those for whom welfare programmes are a means for lining their own pockets. It is in this context that reports of beneficiaries not receiving any money in their bank accounts, even in select blocks where direct payment of subsidy against kerosene purchases at market rates is being tried out on a pilot scale, make for disturbing reading. It is almost as though there is organised sabotage at work."The unnamed author of this opinion piece certainly seems to understand the stakes involved in the next phase of India's UID project.
Things are about to get real.
