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11 Jul 2019
GS Paper 2
Social Justice
The systemic flaw in India’s welfare schemes is last mile delivery rather than the design of the schemes. Comment. (250 words)
Approach
- Introduce by giving constitutional obligation to provide welfare support to the vulnerable people.
- Explain why implementation of schemes poses challenges in India.
- Mention if there are some issues at design level as well.
- Suggest ways to improve last mile delivery.
Introduction
The Directive Principles of State Policy puts certain obligations on the state to provide social welfare schemes for the vulnerable sections of the society. Such schemes are conceptualized at ministerial level and implemented at grassroot level.
Following diagram shows the overall flow of such schemes:
Body
However, Indian government has often been criticized for inadequate implementation and last mile delivery of such schemes.
Implementation is hindered by factors like
- Inefficiency of executives: Reason of inefficiency can be attributed to improper monitoring, lack of accountability, corruption and misalignment of incentives. According to CAG Report 2013, MNREGA scheme failed in Bihar and Karnataka due to misappropriation and subversion of funds.
- Political pressure on executives which hinders their functioning.
- Excessive workload on grassroot workers. Anganwadi workers are expected to support schemes like ICDS, Beti Bachao Bati Padhao, etc. Despite this they face operational difficulties like improper service conditions, untimely payments, denial of EPFOs benefits, etc.
- Improper work culture and unethical conduct of civil servants.
- Infrastructural issues: Lack of adequate facilities across sectors like health, education, transport, etc further deteriorates the chances of success of welfare schemes.
It can be said that there are several factors that hinders last mile delivery of welfare schemes in India. However, sometimes there are flaws in policy design stage as well.
Design flaws
- Political bias in schemes: Certain schemes are announced considering the political gains and not overall national interest. For ex: farm loan waivers across states were criticized by bankers as such practices are not good for the country's credit culture.
- Beneficiary identification: Use of SECC 2011 data which does not truly reflect the ground reality. Sometimes, those in need are left out.
Hence, the design flaws in the welfare schemes cannot be neglected. Both implementation and design of schemes are equally relevant.
Way forward
The policies are made in ministries but implemented at state, district and village level. Hence, there is a need to strengthen grassroot governance. Also, proper feedback should be channelized to the policy makers to modify the systemic flaws.
There are examples of successful implementation of schemes when the overall goal is collectively shared among the citizens. Government adequately tackled several diseases such as polio, malaria and HIV when the target was well publicized and clear.
Apart from participation of citizens, the need of the hour is to simplify procedures, incentivize performance, reduce red-tape and make the best use of technology to achieve the desired goals. The efforts of the present government on the principle of “Reform, Perform, Transform” seems to be in the right direction.
