DBT helped save ₹4.31 lakh crore between 2014 and 2024: Nirmala Sitharaman

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman Tuesday said direct benefit transfers of subsidies have helped the government save ₹4.31 lakh crore between 2014 and 2024. India’s digital transaction volumes have touched ₹261 lakh crore in FY25, she added. Citing various global instances of technology protectionism, she stressed that gains made in technology should not be weaponised, and the motto of tech gains should be for the “public good”.

“Direct benefit transfer has led to savings of ₹4.31 lakh crore between 2014-2024. The government has leveraged digitisation by introducing direct benefit transfer for social welfare schemes. It has boosted welfare efficiency by reducing subsidies, leakages,” Sitharaman said in her address at the Global Fintech Fest 2025.

She said there’s been a sixteen-fold rise in beneficiary coverage. “Not just savings, but actually, one has reached a larger number of beneficiaries. DBT has facilitated that for us. This has ensured that the public funds reach the people they are meant for and not for ghost entities. So, the DBT model presents a valuable lesson, and it can absorb better technologies and better ways of handling technologies and so on,” said Sitharaman.  

Stressing that fintech has transformed financial access into a public good, Sitharaman said it has empowered millions to save, invest, and borrow with dignity and transparency. “India’s journey in fintech innovation and adoption is a story of unprecedented transformation. With 56 crore Jan Dhan accounts—the population equivalent to the entire EU—connected to formal banking in a decade, India now ranks third in the world for the number of fintech companies,” she said.

“India leads in digital payment volumes, having processed over 18,580 crore UPI transactions worth ₹261 lakh crore in FY25. Nearly half of the world’s real-time digital transactions happen in India. Domestic digital transaction adoption rate is at 87% vs 67% globally. Fintech is a nationwide enabler of economic empowerment in India. Fintech has democratised finance in India,” she added.

The finance minister said public welfare should be the motive of technology, fintech, and digital public infrastructure. “Technology gains should not be weaponized at any point of time. Technology cannot be truly mastered. But having gained proprietary rights on some part of it, weaponisation must be refrained from. I am stressing on that as we have witnessed global tech advantages being turned inwards,” she said.