{"id":31162,"date":"2018-10-27T12:25:19","date_gmt":"2018-10-27T06:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=31162"},"modified":"2018-10-27T12:25:19","modified_gmt":"2018-10-27T06:55:19","slug":"fixing-delivery-on-direct-benefit-transfer-in-fertilizers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/fixing-delivery-on-direct-benefit-transfer-in-fertilizers\/","title":{"rendered":"Fixing delivery: on direct benefit transfer in fertilizers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/op-ed\/fixing-delivery\/article22800156.ece\"><b>Fixing delivery: on direct benefit transfer in fertilizers<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Context:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Efficiencies of the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) in fertilisers would be increasingly visible as the pilot project expands to more states<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>About the project:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2017, committee set up by NITI Aayog decided to roll out the pilot on DBT in fertilizers in 16 districts.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Since then DBT in fertilizers has been rolled out in 19 States and Union Territories<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In another three months, DBT in fertilizers is expected to expand its footprint in the entire country.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These initiatives have been supplemented with allied processes set in motion by the Department of Fertilizers including appointment of 24 State DBT co-coordinators, and organising about 4,500 training sessions across India.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Training videos are also placed on YouTube, and the comprehensive redress system in place is being expanded to a multilingual help desk.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>The process of Direct Benefit Transfer in fertilizers:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Each time a farmer purchases fertilizers from a dealer, he\/she presses his or her thumb at a point-of-sale (PoS) device and an authenticated receipt comes out giving details of the purchase and subsidy to be paid by the government directly to the manufacturer.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The records of dealers are automatically updated and payment is made digitally or in cash<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Advantages of DBT in Fertilisers<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Restricts diversion,<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Prevents leakages,<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brings about greater transparency, accountability and efficiency<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Challenges faced:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An important issue had been connectivity. However, this has been addressed through flexibility in choosing the connectivity option (Wifi, LAN, PSTN) or use of external antenna to improve signal strength, other options have also been considered.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Another important issue had been developing the systems and sensitising all stakeholders to migrate to the new system <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Currently, a major issue is of some dealer attrition, which is probably on account of declining margins and reduced possibility of diversion or sale at a higher price. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Surveys on pilot districts<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An independent evaluation agency appointed by NITI Aayog conducted two rounds of surveys of the pilot districts to get ground-level feedback. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> In the latest round 5,659 farmers and 427 retailers across 14 districts in addition to government officials and stakeholders in six States were surveyed<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Findings:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Aadhaar authentication strike rate increased to as high as 97% in three attempts;<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> 85% of farmers received transaction receipts, and<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">98% were charged the same amount as mentioned in the receipt;<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The grievance redress mechanism has improved and 79% retailers are satisfied<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite initial challenges, a majority of farmers (and retailers) prefer the DBT system.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Way ahead<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Innovative solutions such as making the application device agnostic so that retailers can use desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, etc. to run the application are expected to help.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The revamped toll-free number which will soon allow conversations in regional languages is a boost.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> An important issue which needs to be addressed is reducing the waiting time for farmers purchasing fertilizers<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> While Aadhaar is the preferred form of identification of buyers, other forms of identification may also be used.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The broad and overriding goal should be to ensure that under no circumstances should any farmer be denied or refused the opportunity to purchase fertilizers.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fixing delivery: on direct benefit transfer in fertilizers Context: Efficiencies of the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) in fertilisers would be increasingly visible as the pilot project expands to more states About the project: In 2017, committee set up by NITI Aayog decided to roll out the pilot on DBT in fertilizers in 16 districts. Since&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/fixing-delivery-on-direct-benefit-transfer-in-fertilizers\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Fixing delivery: on direct benefit transfer in fertilizers<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704908991},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}