After presiding over the third meeting of the Direct Benefit Transfer Advisory Board on Wednesday, Kaushal said, “The state government has effectively identified a cumulative total of 36,74,833 ghost/duplicate beneficiaries from the fiscal year 2014-15 to 2022-23. This strategic initiative has yielded substantial notional savings amounting to Rs 7,822.69 crore.”
While the system was rightly designed to eliminate ghost beneficiaries, the impact of exclusion errors needs to be professionally and independently evaluated in detail.