Congress party president Rahul Gandhi on Monday formally put the idea of the universal basic income on the political agenda after he promised to implement it if the party was voted to power in the forthcoming general election. First proposed by former chief economic adviser in the finance ministry Arvind Subramanian in his Economic Survey for 2016-17, Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a form of social security guaranteed to citizens and transferred directly to their bank accounts to ensure a minimum living standard for all.