State to form unified portal for direct benefit transfer based beneficiary schemes

KOLKATA: The state Finance department is developing a unified state DBT (direct benefit transfer) portal and has constituted a state DBT cell for better management of all DBT-based beneficiary schemes being implemented by the state government.

"The move will facilitate the citizen to avail services of all DBT schemes from registration to disbursement from one single portal. Currently only a few pensions-related DBT schemes are managed under the Jai Bangla portal. The state DBT portal will be created with assistance from National Informatics Centre (NIC), West Bengal to cover all DBT schemes managed by the state government," a senior official in the state Finance department said.

The state DBT cell's functions will be development and maintenance of a unified State DBT Portal for management and monitoring of all DBT schemes managed by the state Government, overall coordination with NIC and state government departments with respect to on-boarding of DBT schemes, co-ordination with Bharat DBT Mission, Government of India for sharing of relevant DBT related data, integration with IFMS and any other work as may be assigned to the Cell.

A notification released by the state Finance department states that a 14-member steering committee comprising additional chief secretary/ principal secretary/ secretary of various departments associated with DBT headed by Chief Secretary is being constituted for supervising the creation and maintenance of the Unified State DBT Portal (Single Social Registry). The Secretary of the Finance department is the convener of the steering committee.

The committee will also provide necessary advisory for successful implementation of the beneficiary schemes. The Steering Committee will periodically review the status and progress of the development of the portal including accommodation of new beneficiary schemes in the portal.

Members from other departments may be inducted as per decision of the Steering Committee.

A State Development Schemes- e Governance Cell (SDS-eGov) was constituted by the Finance Department in February 2020 for online real time management, monitoring and control of various development schemes. Considering the increasing coverage of the scope of work relating to development, management and monitoring of all DBT schemes managed by the state government, the state is re-constituting the existing SDS-eGov Cell.