Government expenditure for top 3 DBT schemes at Rs 71,500 cr till Feb-end

The government has paid Rs 71,500 crore towards the three major direct benefit transfer (DBT) schemes - Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), National Health Mission (NHM) and food subsidy schemes up to February 2019, according to a Finance Ministry data.

The amount paid towards rural job scheme MGNREGA was Rs 67,121.88 crore and for the NHM the outgo was Rs 3,273.74 crore. The food subsidy was Rs 1,133.73 crore up to February-end this year, the data showed.

The total direct benefit transfers done was Rs 1,77,861.50 crore till February-end, according to the data covering 417 schemes and a little over 66 lakh transactions.

The total number of transactions under MGNREGA was 43,24,19,341 and in the case of NHM it was 2,17,72,011 and for food subsidy 24,62,300 transactions were done, the Ministry data showed.

The NHM envisages achievement of universal access to equitable, affordable and quality healthcare services that are accountable and responsive to people's needs.

The government has already extended the NHM till March, 2020 with a Rs 85,217 crore budget for boosting health infrastructure. Its aim is to reduce household out-of-pocket expenditure on total health care expenditure through 'Ayushman Bharat', reduce annual incidence and mortality from tuberculosis by half, reduce prevalence of leprosy and incidence to zero in all districts, among other major initiatives.

The government had earmarked Rs 1,69,323 crore for food subsidy in the last fiscal of 2018-19 which was later revised to Rs 1.71 lakh crore. IANS