On August 14, the Delhi Government will be taking a great leap forward in cutting down procedural hassles for those who have to shuttle between government departments to get the benefits they are entitled to. The district resource centre, which will act as a single window access to all social schemes run by the Delhi Government, will start functioning on the eve of Independence Day.

There are 42 social schemes run by various departments of the Delhi government. “Not only would all the schemes be made accessible through one window, monetary benefits will also be available on single e-entitlement card. It will be a biometric card on the lines of an ATM card,” said Convergence Mission director, Rashmi Singh who is heading the programme.

The programme is inspired by the Bolsa Familia project in Brazil and, closer home, the Kudumbashree project run by the Kerala Government. The first district resource centre will be inaugurated at the East district’s deputy commissioner’s office on August 14.

It is a pet project of the Sheila Dikshit government, which has been in the pipeline for several months. On May 19 this year, a team from Brazil had visited Delhi to help the government understand the concept better. With implementation of Bolsa Familia project, poverty in Brazil was brought down by 27 per cent. The e-entitlement card is inspired by Bolsa Familia project.

NGOs were invited on July 19 to come forward to run the centres. “We have identified nine NGOs to run the scheme in all the centres. At present, it would be run in the space available at the DCs office, later on we might look in for an elaborate setup,” Rashmi Singh added.

The NGOs have also been asked to carry out a door-to-door survey of their respective areas to find out vulnerable groups who need entitlement but might not be eligible due to the income criteria.

“Like Kudumbashree, we want to look at poverty in a different manner. Income should not be the only criteria for entitlement of social benefit schemes. Occupation, place of residence, head of family and other criteria would also be used to identify these groups,” Singh added. The basis of Kerala’s Kudumbashree project is also identifying group using a non-income criteria.