Reaching beneficiaries in record time through DBT
Atime bound process, Rs 30,796.39 crore and 20.56 crore women beneficiaries with Jan Dhan Accounts. These numbers can only briefly indicate how State Bank of India made Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMJKY) for the poor a success in record time.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in India, Hon’ble Prime Minister announced a relief package under PMJKY for the poor - Rs 500 each to be credited to women Jan Dhan Account holders for the months of April, May and June, to tide over the hardship caused by strict lockdown. Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Rural Development, directed SBI to act as a nodal bank for sending funds to 32 Public and Private sector banks, for onward credit of Rs 500, which was achieved in record time.
HOW SBI CHAMPIONED IT?
The number of beneficiaries for this Yojna was huge. Hence efforts were made to stagger the crediting and its disbursement in a phased manner. This was done to avoid overcrowding of branches. The process continued for three months.
On receiving the request from the Ministry to have a dash board that has MIS of the beneficiaries of all the banks, SBI’s in-house IT Team rose to the occasion to make it available in a short time despite skeletal staff due to Covid situation. A joint effort of the team made this Yojna successful in short span of time.
RISING TO THE OCCASSION
State Bank of India is playing a major role in supplementing these efforts of the Government. DBT Desk at Government Business Unit in New Delhi, coordinates with IT Teams of the Bank, Central/State Ministries, NPCI, NIC, PFMS and various Implementing Agencies across the country, through its wide network of branches. All the major schemes of Central Government are being implemented through SBI on a pan India level. SBI is the accredited Bank for 26 ministries.
State Governments are also benefitted by using SBI’s robust IT platform for implementing their area/region wise schemes for identified target groups. The Bank has appointed Nodal Officer for each state to look after their needs.
FUTURE DBT PLANS
SBI is the accredited bank for Ministry of Chemical and Fertilizer. Department of Fertilizer is working on the project to streamline the “Indian Fertilizer Subsidy Programme” by exploring the feasibility of direct cash transfer to small and marginal farmers for providing subsidy to procure fertilizer. SBI is actively working with Department of Fertilizer for convenient payment solutions for procurement of fertilizer by farmers as well as cashless solution to their distribution network.
DBT is the high priority and focus area of Government of India. To make the process seamless, the GoI is continuously working on reforming the delivery system, of fulfilling their social responsibility, by strengthening the existing processes in various welfare schemes, ensuring simpler and faster flow of funds to the identified beneficiaries by proper identification of target groups, avoiding multiple payments and frauds by deduplication, unifying these key schemes with last mile beneficiaries in SBI.
Today we built technological and channel capability to service seamlessly the largest clientele base in India and we used it effectively to make available financial assistance to crores of women PMJDY beneficiaries. Shri Challa Sreenivasulu Setty Managing Director, Retail & Digital Banking, SBI