Daijiworld Media Network - Gandhinagar
Gandhinagar, Jun 28: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday said the Narendra Modi-led government has transformed the country's welfare delivery system through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), ensuring that every rupee allocated by the Centre reaches beneficiaries directly without leakages.
Addressing a public gathering after launching the pilot project of the PM Family Care Tracker (PM-FCT) and Health Passports in Gandhinagar, Shah said the current welfare architecture has brought greater transparency and accountability by eliminating intermediaries in the transfer of government benefits.
Recalling an observation made by a former Prime Minister about leakages in welfare spending, Shah said there was a time when it was acknowledged that only a small portion of every rupee sent from Delhi reached the poor, with the rest being lost in the system.
He asserted that the situation has changed completely under the present government due to the implementation of the Direct Benefit Transfer mechanism.
"As the Union Home Minister and a Member of Parliament, I can confidently say that when Prime Minister Narendra Modi sends one rupee from Delhi, the entire amount is credited directly into the bank account of the beneficiary," Shah said.
According to the Home Minister, the DBT system has ushered in a new era of welfare delivery by ensuring financial assistance reaches eligible citizens without delays or diversion.
Reflecting on his experiences before the present government assumed office, Shah said he had witnessed the severity of poverty during visits to the Purvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh.
While acknowledging that poverty also existed in Gujarat, he remarked that the conditions he observed in eastern Uttar Pradesh reflected extreme deprivation, with many families lacking access to basic necessities.
He said numerous households did not have permanent homes, electricity, toilets, piped drinking water or access to proper healthcare facilities. According to Shah, the absence of essential services left many poor families with little support during medical emergencies, forcing mothers to rely solely on hope and prayers when their children fell ill.
The Home Minister reiterated that the present welfare model ensures government assistance reaches intended beneficiaries directly through bank accounts, eliminating the possibility of leakages that existed under earlier systems.
During the event, Shah also launched the pilot phase of the PM Family Care Tracker, a digital platform designed to integrate multiple government welfare databases for improved monitoring and delivery of health, nutrition, education and social welfare schemes.
The platform is expected to enable better tracking of services provided to mothers and children, strengthen coordination among welfare programmes and improve the overall efficiency of benefit delivery through a unified digital ecosystem.