Many schemes must end, be reviewed to fund NYAY, says MIT Economist

In an interview with IndiaSpend, MIT Economist Banerjee spoke about the the financial viability of NYAY

In late March 2019, Rahul Gandhi, the Congress party president, announced it would roll out an ambitious minimum income guarantee programme, the Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY), if voted to power. “We will wipe out poverty from the country,” he said, adding that the scheme would target the poorest 20%.

The scheme promises to provide Rs 72,000 annually or “a flat, uniform amount of Rs 6,000 a month to the poorest 50 million Indian families”, and “entails a peak cost of Rs 3.6 lakh crore--1.8% of India’s gross domestic product (GDP) today,” wrote Praveen Chakravarty, chairperson of the Congress party’s data