 Good afternoon and welcome. We're coming to you from day two of the Fiji Symposium in Bangalore. The platform for all dialogue on financial inclusion. And with me today is Mr. Piyush Kumar, Joint Secretary, DBT Mission Cabinet Secretary at. Welcome, sir. And thank you for being part of the Fiji Symposium. The Fiji Symposium is the first ever of its kind. It's happening in India. Yeah, I believe it's a very good platform to bring all together different participants on a platform. The morning session was quite insightful and very well given the fact that some very impressive gains have been, you know, are being worked out, experimented in India. I think it is only opportune that India was selected as the first, you know, for the first for conference India was selected and that to Bangalore. This has been a good conference. There has been a lot of participants who have, you know, different ideas have come and that way for India and for globally also this will be quite helpful in furthering the financial inclusion. When it comes down to the potential of digital financial services, what exactly is it for it to increase financial inclusion? You see, potential is in fact very high as a welfare state. The government itself spends a huge amount of money on various welfare and subsidy programs. So, you know, annually almost about the government of India, India's budget itself almost about 25 percent is directly for the subsidy programs and welfare combined. And similarly, if you take the state and government, central government together, almost nearly around 4 percent of the total GDP is what really, I mean, we are spending in this field. The problem has been there. It has been quite sometime there, you know, in 80s itself it was coined that a single rupee, every rupee that is sent down, you know, huge amount, only a very marginal portion of it reaches the deserved, the targeted group. Essentially, direct benefit transfer is an attempt to bring all the technological advancements to one level where government services and subsidy programs can be targeted to the deserving people. So, in that sense, you know, a lot of things are happening. And it has really redefined the way government can approach deserving the targeted class people in a direct way. Also, when it comes down to the world's poor people or even from our country, what do you think is the reason for them to prefer digital financial services that are being offered over the traditional methods of cash? There are two ways. In fact, the preference, of course, is that once digital cash system has a direct accessibility. So, in some sense, you become owner of your, you know, whatever benefits are coming. In the, if you look at the largest employment guarantee program, the Manrega, when the cash is given, the holding of that cash and the manner in which it has to be spent. And again, because of the, you know, rent seeking behavior, one was not sure how much money will be coming in. With direct transfers coming to the bank, to that extent, there is a sense of security that whatever is my, you know, whatever is my due, I will be getting. So, in that sense, it is a great, this thing. And there has been very positive, you know, support to the direct benefit transfer in that sense. But of course, the limiting factor again is that the brick and mortar branches are limited. And therefore, if you substitute one, at least earlier system, the panchayats or the local government offices were locally available. The banks many times may be further away. So, if an, on average, in a rural India, if you look at 25 kilometers to 40 kilometers, if the bank branch is there, then to travel that much becomes difficult. So, what has to be done is that the advantage of digital for, to harness the potential of digital financial inclusion, the financial services have to reach to two steps. That is where, you know, a lot of things are happening and which have been today's subject of discussion also. Correct. And when it comes down to the next steps of the DBT mission, what exactly is it? The direct benefit transformation, when we were designing since very early, you know, as I was discussed also in the inaugural session, it was very lookingly brought out, that the bank accounts, the Aadhar as a digital identity and the mobile telephony, all of these in India are billion plus. So, it is a huge database that, the potential that has been created. And in a very short period of time or a period of seven, eight years, a lot of this revolution has taken place. So, in some sense, combining these three together, which is called the Jam Trinity. So, Jandan, Aadhar and mobile combination provides as a platform or provides are the three pillars on which direct benefit transfer can be designed. Essentially, direct benefit transfer is reaching out to people directly, to the targeted people or to deserving people using these technology platforms, both in the subsidies and the welfare programs. So, today, Government of India has taken up that almost all the, you know, subsidy programs and welfare program of Government of India are being increasingly programmed on these technology platforms. And Government of India is also working closely with the state governments to ensure that these state level platforms, the state level schemes also, or funds which are transferred from central government to the state government are also brought on this platform. Okay, that's great. Thank you so much for your time. So, thank you so much.