The Government is estimated to have saved over ₹27,000 crore by cash transfers for payments to beneficiaries under various welfare schemes in the last two years.

The issue was discussed at a review meeting by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the progress of Aadhaar and Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) programmes.

“It has also resulted in weeding out of duplicate beneficiaries,” said an official release on Tuesday.

Over 1.6 crore bogus ration cards have been deleted, resulting in savings of about ₹10,000 crore. Similarly, 3.5 crore duplicate beneficiaries were weeded out in the PAHAL scheme, resulting in savings of over ₹14,000 crore in 2014-15 alone.

In Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) too, a saving of ₹3,000 crore (roughly 10 per cent) has been estimated in 2015-16.

“Several States and Union Territories too have achieved significant savings through DBT,” said the release.

The Prime Minister was also informed about the progress in Aadhaar and DBT. In 2015-16, fund transfers worth ₹61,000 crore was done through DBT to over 30 crore beneficiaries. This includes over ₹25,000 crore in MGNREGS and over ₹21,000 crore in PAHAL (for cooking gas).

The Government is now also working on a unique identifier for non government organisations (NGOs). Over 71,000 NGOs are now registered with the NGO Darpan portal maintained by NITI Aayog.

The Prime Minister stressed on making the DBT and Aadhaar platform error-free to ensure that targeted beneficiaries receive their benefits in time.

He also cautioned that beneficiaries should not be inconvenienced in the implementation of DBT and Aadhaar for various schemes. Further, officials must test their systems carefully before rolling them out on a large scale.

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