 "Nirmala Sitharaman")
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said the direct benefit transfers (DBTs) had helped the government save more than Rs. 2.73 trillion since 2014.
“We adopted DBT in pension, gas subsidy, and interest subvention schemes. The DBT is Aadhaar-verified and will go only to one account,” she said, delivering a lecture series on ‘Bharat in Amrit Kaal’ via videoconferencing.
After 1947, Sitharaman said, India depended on a growth formula derived from the centralised USSR model where everything was decided at the Centre and one size-fits all methodology was adopted.
“The directives from the Centre never had any region or state feel that those were good for them. As a result, you had a very half-hearted average performance of India that grew at 1.5 per cent to 2 per cent, termed as Hindu growth rate,” she said.
The FM said the data charge was the lowest in India compared to many other countries in the world as the cost per GB of data in 2014 was Rs. 308, which has come down to Rs. 9.9 in 2023.
Also Read
Sitharaman said G20 countries were looking up to India for its achievement in digital public goods and India stack -- be it fintech payment-related, health, or identity-related. “India has proven that it is a leader in using digital public goods as people have adapted to it due to availability in local languages.”
She said the government would make sure that every policy of the government reaches all people during the Amrit Kaal for building India into a developed nation by 2047.
Highlighting the government’s focus on financial inclusion, she said around 3.9 million street vendors had got collateral-free loans and Rs. 7,351 crore had been disbursed to SCs and STs beneficiaries under the Stand-up India scheme. Over 30 million urban and rural houses have been built under the PM Awas Yojana.
Sitharaman said IITs had been given about Rs. 2,700 crore as grants for research and development alone. “The kind of policy support we have given for patents, trademarks, and copyrights are very interesting. They have shown results and women’s participation has also doubled in nine years,” she said.
