India has taken good advantage of digitisation to create social protection programmes that reach the poor, World Bank President David Malpass said on Thursday, noting that the country can do a lot more on the administrative side to create efficiencies.
According to a recent World Bank poverty report, some countries had been able to soften the blow on poverty that was caused by Covid-19 through cash transfer systems and digitalisation.
"I think we should recognise the importance of digitalisation within the world because it allows even the poor countries to have a connection with people around the country," Malpass said at a press conference here on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
"It is a connection that wasn't available before this digitalisation and India has taken good advantage of that to create social protection programs that reach the poor,” Malpass said in response to a question.
That showed up in the data from 2020 events, he said. As Covid hit, there were programmes that helped soften the blow on the poor.
"So, we welcome that. I think India can do lots more on the administrative side to create efficiencies, both within the federal government, in the civil service of India and within the State,” he said.
The aim of DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) is to transfer the benefits and subsidies of various social welfare schemes directly in the bank account of the beneficiary on time by bringing efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and also to eliminate the intermediary body.
According to the government data, more than Rs 24.8 lakh crore has been transferred through DBT mode since 2013, Rs 6.3 lakh crore in the financial year 2021-22 alone; on an average over 90 lakh DBT payments are processed daily as per data of FY22.
The World Bank works actively both with the federal government, but also actively with the State governments on ways to address poverty, ways to address stunting, ways to address water and electricity, and also climate adaptation.
"All of these are core issues of our programme in India," Malpass said.