New Delhi:
The Bharatiya Janata Party's opposition aside, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has instructed ministries and departments to immediately start work for the rollout of the direct cash transfer of subsidies programme from January 1.
"I would request you to get down to the immediate task of operationalising direct cash transfers in the identified schemes in your department," Pulok Chatterjee, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, wrote to nine secretaries of the central government.
This follows the first meeting of the National Committee on Direct Cash Transfers chaired by the Prime Minister on November 26.
The letter said emphasis should be on having a trouble-free rollout of the programme, first in 51 districts and subsequently across the rest of the country as per schedule.
"The main issue you need to focus on is ensuring that you have a complete list of beneficiaries in digitised form seeded with Aadhaar numbers," the letter said.
Digitisation of database, it said, is critical for rolling out the scheme. Chatterjee told the secretaries they will be provided help by Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and the information technology department.