The foregoing account of India’s key social protection programmes for vulnerable
households and informal workers sets the stage for our analysis of how the system is being used and how it has performed so far during the pandemic.
In terms of coverage, PDS, cash transfers, NSAP, and MGNREGA are clearly the front-runners and formed the backbone of the policy response.
However, as we will see in the next chapter, many other smaller programmes were also pressed into service.
Identification of beneficiaries, getting identified households registered, successfully linking the bank account to Aadhar, and last-
mile delivery of cash to the beneficiary - are
the points where exclusion can occur.
Endnotes
1 The chapter and the next draw extensively on a background paper on Covid-19 and social protection written for the Asian Development Bank (Kapoor and Basole 2020).
2 In more general terms (abstracting away from the immediate needs of the Covid crisis), universalization need not mean that everyone receives the same entitlements, rather only that everyone is part of the system without condition, and receives individual entitlements regardless of current residence. Special provisions for the poorest of the poor can certainly exist, as is already the case with the Antyodaya category under the NFSA.
3 Ministry of Finance 2017; Khera 2014; Kapur, Subramanian, and Mukhopadhyay 2008; S.
Narayanan 2011; Gulati and Saini 2015
4 Maternity benefits (cash), the midday meals and ICDS programs for child nutrition, and PDS together make up the NFSA programmes.
5 https://nfsa.gov.in/ and https://dfpd.gov.in/pds- caeunfsa.htm
6 https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/poverty- inequality/a-review-of-the-coverage-of-pds.html
7 https://www.firstpost.com/india/jharkhands- daily-wage-labourers-left-out-of-pds-safety-net- fear-starvation-as-employment-dries-up-during- Covid-19-lockdown-8407431.html
8 E.g. Karnataka: https://www.thehindu.com/news/
national/karnataka/state-govt-announces-ration- to-non-cardholders-at-pds-shops/article31259310.
ece
9 See https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/
governance/consent-to-nothing-aadhaar-based- payment-systems-in-welfare.html for one account of how the process works in the context of welfare delivery.
20 per cent. (Drèze and Khera 2015; Khera, Khalid, and Somanchi 2017).
11 In answers to Parliamentary questions, the Rajasthan government mentioned that ABBA was disrupted due to “inadequate server capacity of the Rajasthan Government”, ‘insufficient lease line capacity”, “poor mobile signal at POS devices”,
“incorrect seeding of Aadhaar numbers in PDS database”, etc. (in Khera 2017).
12 https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/poverty- inequality/aadhaar-that-doesn-t-exclude.html
13 In this context it is worth noting that in the 2021-22 Union Budget, the government has brought all its outstanding payments to FCI on the books, thereby causing a jump in the fiscal deficit (see Basole 2021).
14 https://www.dvara.com/blog/2021/03/02/
making-grievances-matter-unpacking-exclusion- grievance-redress-and-the-role-of-civil-society- organisations/
15 See Basole and Jayadev 2018; Sukhtankar 2016 for overview.
16 https://www.businesstoday.in/top-story/4- reasons-why-mgnrega-is-not-benefitting-workers/
story/282891.html, https://www.downtoearth.org.
in/blog/economy/mgnrega-is-failing-10-reasons- why-62035, https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/
economy/underfunding-misleading-claims-the- story-of-mgnrega-in-new-india-65627
17 https://jansoochna.rajasthan.gov.in/ and https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/a- milestone-in-greater-transparency-accountability/
article29411242.ece
18 http://nsap.nic.in/. These include the Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme, Indira Gandhi National Widow Pension Scheme and Indira Gandhi National Disability Pension Scheme.
19 https://thewire.in/politics/in-chhattisgarhs-
6. India’s social protection architecture
20 https://egc.yale.edu/sites/default/files/
COVID%20Brief.pdf
21 https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/poverty- inequality/Covid-19-relief-are-women-jan-dhan- accounts-the-right-choice-for-cash-transfers.html
22 See exclusion criteria here: https://www.pmkisan.
gov.in/
23 https://www.pmkisan.gov.in/StateDist_
Beneficiery.aspx
24 Note that Atal Pension Yojana and Shram Yogi Maandhan are both defined-benefit pension plans while NPS is a defined-contribution plan: https://
www.financialexpress.com/budget/budget-2019- atal-pension-yojana-vs-pradhan-mantri-shram-yogi- maandhan-vs-nps-what-sets-them-apart/1470277/
25 https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/
news/economy/indicators/enrolments- in-informal-workers-pension-plan-drop- 92-to-130000/articleshow/82055146.
cms?utm_campaign=Worker%20Web&utm_
medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter
26 Welfare boards are extensively reviewed in NCEUS (2006) and Mehrotra (2020).
27 Consultation with Chandan Kumar, Hamal Panchayat Union.
28 http://mahamathadi.in/#/
29 See Nirmana Organisation, Pilot Social Audit of BOCW Act in Delhi, at http://www.nirmana.org/
Documents/social_audit_report-delhi.pdf
30 Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour (2014): “The Building and Other Construction Workers
Related Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2013,” Lok Sabha, New Delhi, http://164.100.47.193/lsscommittee/
Labour/15_Labour_44.pdf. — (2018): “Action Taken by the Government on the Observations/
Recommendations of the Committee Contained in their Twenty-Eighth Report (Sixteenth Lok Sabha) on ‘Cess funds and their Utilisation for Workers’
Welfare,” Lok Sabha, New Delhi,
http://164.100.47.193/lsscommittee/Labour/16_
Labour_38.pdf.
31 https://scroll.in/article/964108/how-india-can- strengthen-its-social-security-code-to-include-the- 422-million-workers-left-behind
32 https://www.aajeevika.org/sr-collectivizing- workers.php. See (De 2020) for a close analysis of the multiple vulnerabilities faced by migrant construction workers in Ahmedabad.
33 Consultation with Rajendran Narayanan, Libtech India and Azim Premji University
34 Dvara Research has been documenting cases of DBT exclusion in collaboration with Gram Vaani in https://www.dvara.com/research/social- protection-initiative/falling-through-the-cracks- case-studies-in-exclusion-from-social-protection/
Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
35 E.g. https://www.dvara.com/blog/2020/08/20/
exclusion-from-pm-kisan-due-to-delay-in- correction-of-beneficiary-records-in-pfms/
36 https://www.dvara.com/blog/2020/09/01/
agent-fraud-in-welfare-transfers-a-case-study-in- exclusion/