Advanced International Journal for Research

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Volume 7 Issue 5
September-October 2026

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Direct Benefit Transfer (Dbt) as a Tool for Poverty Reduction: a Review of Policy and Practice in India

Author(s) Dr. P Magudapathy
Country India
Abstract Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) has emerged as the dominant welfare delivery mechanism in India since the early 2010s, replacing large parts of the older subsidy and in-kind distribution architecture with electronic transfers routed directly into beneficiaries' bank accounts. Built on the foundation of the JAM trinity, that is, Jan Dhan bank accounts, Aadhaar biometric identity and mobile connectivity, DBT was conceived primarily as a governance reform intended to reduce leakage, curb corruption and improve targeting accuracy in welfare programmes. This paper reviews the policy evolution of DBT in India and synthesises empirical evidence on its performance across major sectors including cooking-fuel subsidy, food distribution, employment guarantee payments, and health-linked transfers. The review finds robust evidence that DBT has reduced diversion of subsidised commodities to black markets and shortened payment delays, but it also documents a recurring and serious cost: exclusion errors that deny genuine beneficiaries access to entitlements because of authentication failures, banking-infrastructure gaps or database mismatches. The paper argues that DBT should be understood not as a uniformly poverty-reducing technology but as a delivery mechanism whose welfare effects depend heavily on the quality of last-mile implementation, an argument that motivates the district-level evaluation of DBT effectiveness undertaken later in this research programme.
Keywords Direct Benefit Transfer, DBT, Aadhaar, JAM trinity, leakage, exclusion error, welfare delivery, India
Field Arts
Published In Volume 7, Issue 5, September-October 2026
Published On 2026-10-21
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E-ISSN 3048-7641
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