Smart thinking better than Smartcards.

The government of India spends Rs 2.5 trillion on welfare schemes every year but a lot of the money fails to reach the intended recipients because of poor implementation or outright theft by those who administer the schemes. A study conducted in Andhra Pradesh, to see if biometric Smartcards improved delivery of aid to target recipients, showed that they reduced unpredictability by 39% and the time of reception by 29%. The study does not address how many people were receiving benefits despite being well off. Figures released last year showed that 20.10 million households out of a total of 20.80 held ration cards and were therefore receiving food aid. In some districts there were more ration cards than total population. Even the Congress led government, which proudly passed the Food Security Bill, refused to provide food for more than 60.98% of the rural and 41.14% of the urban population. Smartcards may ensure full and timely payments to recipients but will not prevent undeserving people from obtaining them by bribing officials. Where there is so much money in the trough there are bound to be lots of snouts wanting to feed from it. There are an estimated 2 million NGOs in India, one for every 600 people, who receive Rs 9.50 billion from the government every year. An eye watering $2 billion, Rs 12,000 crore, comes from abroad, for what purpose we do not know since NGOs do not file tax returns or detailed spending accounts. A Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court revealed that a NGO called Council for Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technology was given Rs 100,000 by the government of which Rs 63,243 went on honorariums, Rs 20,347.50 on travel and Rs 6,487.50 on printing stationery, for a total of Rs 90,078. Not much left for advancement then. Problem is that activists have an emotional attachment to poverty and any attempt at rational debate of the benefits of social schemes immediately invites abuse and charges of being a Nazi. On the one hand they want to preserve the environment for future generation while on the other they want to give poor people rights over forests, which means they will chop down trees and kill animals for food. No one asks the poor whether they want to be given alms for doing nothing, which will reduce productivity and increase inflation, thus reducing their buying capacity, or they would prefer world class infrastructure which would enable them to diversify into other professions. Venezuela used its oil money for social schemes. Today inflation is above 60% and people are having to queue for basics while murder rates are so high that there is a shortage of coffins. Link all handouts to not having children. It will immediately reduce poverty, improve health and increase growth by increasing productivity.