Posted on 01/02/2013 10:51:37 AM PST by Olog-hai
India will pay billions of dollars in social welfare money directly to its poor under a new program that aims to cut out the middlemen blamed for the massive fraud that plagues the system.
Previously, officials only handed out cash to the poor after taking a cut—if they didn't keep all of it for themselves—and were known to enroll fake recipients or register unqualified people. The program inaugurated Tuesday would see welfare money directly deposited into recipients’ bank accounts and require them to prove their identity with biometric data, such as fingerprints or retina scans. …
The program is loosely based on Brazil’s widely praised Bolsa Familia program, which has helped lift more than 19 million people out of poverty since 2003. It will begin in 20 of the country’s 640 districts Tuesday, affecting more than 200,000 recipients, and will be progressively rolled out in other areas in the coming months, (Finance Minister P.) Chidambaram said Monday. The country has 440 million people living below the poverty line. …
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