But as the article outlines, the schemes that India needs to cut to fund it comprise half of India's annual budget - which means less spending on things India desperately lacks like infrastructure - and each recipient gets $113 per annum, which is a undoubtedly a real boon to some of them but really doesn't go that far towards accelerating growth in India. And the corrupt are not going to find it any harder to siphon funds from unworldly, unbanked and often illiterate people living (or better still, recently deceased) in remote villages than they are to siphon off funds spent in other ways. Unless and until India gets dumbphone-based banking, the sheer logistics of dispensing money to a billion people is pretty mindboggling.
Not sure if you are from India or not, but it looks like you are not aware of how banking has improved in India.
Dumbphone banking is possible for more than a billion people (as long as they can afford a dumbphone service and have Aadhar - biometric ID). I say billion and not all Indians, because there's < 300 million Indians who are yet to get their Aadhar ID cards. With UBI even the poorest should be able to afford a dumb phone and a phone service.
India has all the needed infra to dispense money to a billion people. All it needs to ensure is, if UBI is implemented, remove every single subsidy thats currently given.
What would be worse, is to have a haphazard implementation of UBI without removing subsidies, and people revolting at removal of either of these schemes.
