The Direct Benefits Transfer Initiative is the real tool against corruption that will ensure that the welfare state doesn’t degenerate into a farewell state. The Government of India has announced the Direct Benefits Transfer initiative with the aim of ensuring better and more timely delivery of benefits to the people. This marks a paradigm shift, where the State is explicitly taking responsibility to ensure that welfare schemes and basic entitlements reach the intended beneficiaries much more effectively than at present. What will DBT do? The DBT programme aims that entitlements and benefits to people can be transferred directly to them through biometric-based Aadhaarlinked bank accounts, thus reducing several layers of intermediaries and delays in the system. The lastmile of the initiative is the most important — the system will allow actual disbursements to take place at the doorstep of the beneficiaries through a dense, interoperable network of business correspondents (BCs) using biometric micro ATM machines. Thus, the yardstick of success is not going to be that the money has reached a bank account, but that it has reached the hands of the intended beneficiary — a student, a pensioner, a widow, an elderly person, a disabled person, a poor family.