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Income Guarantee Scheme Will Be Rolled Out In Phases, Says Chidambaram

There is enough data to identify the five crore families, says Chidambaram.



India’s former finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram speaks at an event. (Photographer: Namas Bhojani/Bloomberg News)
India’s former finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram speaks at an event. (Photographer: Namas Bhojani/Bloomberg News)

The Congress party's minimum guaranteed income scheme will be rolled out in phases and the five crore beneficiary families will be covered in phases, senior leader P Chidambaram said.

The former Finance Minister said enough economists and experts in the subject have been consulted and they broadly agreed that India has capacity to implement the scheme, Chidambaram said in a press conference, adding that the allocation for the scheme is expected to constitute 1.8 percent of the GDP.

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Chidambaram said the former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan was of the view that the implementation of the scheme is possible. The senior Congress party leader said the scheme has to be tested in the field before being rolled out.

The scheme will be rolled out in phases and we will cover the five crore families in phases.
P Chidambaram, Senior Congress Leader

An expert committee will be set up for the implementation of the scheme and it will design it at every stage and "we will consult the committee before we move to the next stage," he said. There is enough data to identify the five crore families, Chidambaram added.

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