The Reserve Bank of India has today placed on its website the report
of the Committee for suggesting a framework for Electronic Benefit Transfer
(EBT) for public comments. Comments may be sent either by post to the Chief General
Manager, Reserve Bank of India, Department of Payment and Settlement Systems,
Central Office, Fort, Mumbai - 400 001 or sent by Fax at no. 022- 22659566 or
may be emailed
on or before May 16, 2008. The Committee has, in its report, made recommendations
on the implementation possibilities of EBT. The underlying theme of the recommendation
is to have a broader methodology to ensure that Government payments reach the
ultimate beneficiaries using the banking channels, adopting the plan of financial
inclusion using BCs and biometric based smart-card technology. The Committee has
also suggested a framework for monitoring the progress in implementation. Of
late, a number of State Governments have introduced social welfare programmes
which involve payment to the beneficiaries. Payments are made either through Government
offices or through banks or other means like money orders. The Reserve Bank of
India has also taken certain initiatives to enlarge the reach of banking facilities
to sectors neglected so far through its financial inclusion initiatives in the
form of permitting banks to engage Business Correspondents (BC). Coupled with
this, the need to channelise the financial benefits extended by Governments, both
central and the states, to the weaker and needy sections of the society, to the
ultimate beneficiaries using the banking system was also identified. In this background,
a Committee was appointed for analysing the relative issues and suggesting an
appropriate workable framework for Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) system that
can be considered for adoption by all State Governments. Alpana
Killawala
Chief General Manager Press
Release : 2007-2008/1376 | |