The Bengal government is developing a dedicated DBT (direct benefit transfer) portal where Aadhaar cards of all beneficiaries receiving money from various government schemes would be incorporated.

It will be integrated with the Centre’s Bharat DBT portal.

This is the first time the state government will be verifying all the beneficiaries of its welfare schemes and sharing the details with the Centre.

The issue had come up at a recent meeting of the Eastern Zonal Council’s standing committee, where representatives of the Union home ministry discussed several issues with the eastern states.

“Currently, the state runs 72 schemes where money is directly transferred to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries. Similarly, 46 centrally sponsored schemes are running in Bengal. Till now, Aadhaar seeding was not mandatory for the state schemes,” said a senior government official.

The decision, sources said, is a timely one as the state is struggling to run various welfare schemes because of the financial burden.

“More than Rs 30,000 crore are being spent to run various welfare schemes. So far, the government did not check whether the beneficiaries are getting benefits from more than one scheme. Seeding of the Aadhaar of each of the beneficiary and uploading on the portal would ensure that no beneficiary can access multiple schemes,” said a source.