Direct Benefit Transfer in Fertilizer: Fourth round of concurrent evaluation—A nationally representative study

• by Anurodh Giri, Ritesh Rautela, Saborni Poddar, Karthick Morchan, Vikram Sharma, Mitul Thapliyal and Puneet Khanduja
• Oct 22, 2019
• 1 min
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NITI Aayog engaged MSC in a nationally representative study on DBT in fertilizer. This report provides details of the on-the-ground realities of DBT-F implementation and makes actionable recommendations to improve the DBT-F system further.

DBT in Fertilizer (DBT-F) is a modified subsidy payment system under which the government remits subsidy amount to fertilizer companies after fertilizer retailers have sold fertilizer to farmers through successful Aadhaar-based authentication. The government launched DBT in fertilizer at a national scale over four phases between September 2016 and March 2018. On the request of the NITI Aayog and Department of Fertilizers, MSC conducted the evaluation of each phase. The first three rounds of the evaluation consisted of the pilot districts, while the fourth round included the pan-India rollout.

This report provides detailed findings from the evaluation conducted in the fourth round for fertilizer retailers and farmers on training and awareness, transaction status and experience, compliance with processes, grievance resolution mechanisms (GRM), and farmer feedback on DBT-F and the cashless payment system. This report provides recommendations to aid policy-level decision making and improve operations on the ground.