Congress party's minimum guaranteed income scheme will be rolled out in phases and the five crore beneficiary families

Chennai, Mar 27: 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 Wednesday. Addressing a press conference here, 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.

He said the allocation for the scheme is expected to constitute 1.8 per cent of the GDP. Chidambaram said the former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan was of the view that the implementation of the scheme is possible. "The scheme will be rolled out in phases and we will cover the five crore families in phases," he added. The senior party leader said the scheme has to be tested in the field before being rolled out.

Former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan

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 next stage," he said. There is enough data to identify the five crore families, Chidambaram added.