Nobel laureate economist Abhijit Banerjee Thursday said a small African country Togo did direct money transfers through phone but a country like India ‘don’t have the set-up for that’ and ‘can’t do it.
NDTV editor and anchor Sreenivasan Jain, who was anchoring the show Reality Check nodded in agreement.
Banerjee said Togo transferred small money in the mobiles of people in the pandemic.
The 70-seconds clip of the show, posted by NDTV on its social media accounts, went viral.
People were surprised that a Nobel laureate and NDTV editor were so clueless about direct transfer arrangements which have been in place in the country for about seven years.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had transferred money in the accounts of farmers and other beneficiaries on many occasions through digital mediums.
India launched BHIM app in December 2016 to promote digital transactions using phones.
UPI was launched in April 2016 to ensure seamless digital transfers and payments.
Many state governments have been using the same mediums to provide relief to poor people. On Thursday, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath transferred 230 crore rupees in the bank accounts of 23 lakh daily wagers.
In MNREGA, the world's largest employment guarantee scheme, all the payments are made directly in the bank accounts of beneficiaries.
Arvind Gupta, former CEO of myGov, tweeted, “Sir, we have a better system called JAM – JanDhan, Aadhaar, mobile and it works well. 820 million beneficiary.”
He quoted the tweet put out by NDTV.
