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CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF WELFARE EFFORTS IN INDIA

*Shalini Pandey

Research Scholar

MPUAT, Udaipur

Abstract

“Growth with Social Justice” has been the basic objective of the development planning in India

since independence.In order to achieve these objectives,Government of India has launched

several welfare schemes and programme for needy section of society. Different segment of

population got benefitted by these welfare schemes, which have led to significant changes. Some

of these changes are distinctly visible – especially in the economic sphere with the adoption of

new technologies, diversified production, and sophisticated management. Changes have also

taken place in the social sphere – with affirmative action for disadvantaged communities and

with women enjoying by and large more freedoms than ever before. This seminar attempts to

critically analyze the welfare efforts in India and how the changes occur over a period of time in

these welfare programmes with special focus on poverty alleviation programme and women

empowerment programmes.

Introduction

The Indian Constitution establishes a welfare state, which is clear from the salient features in the

Preamble and the Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP). In this spirit, India is making a

determined attempt to fulfill its ideal of a welfare state not only in principle but also through

economic planning, thus securing to the Indian citizens justice—social, economic and political.

In this spirit, striving towards the similar objectives, the welfare schemes are provided by the

state to vulnerable section of society like women, children, SC, ST, OBC, Minorities, Senior

Citizens, differently-abled and others. For empowering marginalized and vulnerable

communities, Indian government has established an extensive social welfare system. Several

programmes designed for betterment and enhancement of quality of life for SC, ST, BC,

Minorities, women, etc. stand proof to it.

Social welfare generally denotes the full range of organized activities of voluntary and

governmental agencies that seek to prevent, alleviate, or contribute to the solution of recognized

social problems, or to improve the well-being of individuals, groups, or communities.

It includes:

Poverty Alleviation Program

Programme for women and child welfare

Schemes for financial inclusion

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I. ANALYSIS OF POVERTY ALLEVIATION PROGRAM

POVERTYis a condition where people's basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter are not being

met. Poverty is generally of two types: (1) Absolute poverty when people cannot obtain adequate

resources (measured in terms of calories or nutrition) to support a minimum level of physical

health. (2) Relative poverty occurs when people do not enjoy a certain minimum level of living

standards as determined by a government (and enjoyed by the bulk of the population).

In India, defining a poverty line has been a controversial issue, especially since mid-1970s when

the first such poverty line was created by the erstwhile Planning Commission. It was based on

minimum daily requirement of 2,400 and 2,100 calories for an adult in rural and urban areas,

respectively. Economists such as DT Lakdawala and later YK Alagh, among others, were

involved in working out the poverty line from time to time.

Recently, some modifications were made considering other basic requirements of the poor, such

as housing, clothing, education, health, sanitation, conveyance, fuel, entertainment, etc, thus

making the poverty line more realistic. This was done by Suresh Tendulkar (2009) and C

Rangarajan (2014) during the UPA regime.

Based on the Suresh Tendulkar panel's recommendations in 2011-12, the poverty line had been

fixed at Rs 27 in rural areas and Rs 33 in urban areas, levels at which getting two meals may be

difficult.

Those spending over Rs 32 a day in rural areas and Rs 47 in towns and cities should not be

considered poor, an expert panel headed by former RBI governor C Rangarajan said in a report

submitted to the government in 2014.

The Rangarajan committee was tasked with revisiting the Tendulkar formula for estimation of

poverty and identification of the poor after a massive public outcry erupted over the abnormally

low poverty lines fixed by UPA government.

Currently, a ration card holder is entitled to 35 kg of food grain every month. Ahluwalia had said

that food subsidy would rise if there was any increase in the number of BPL families. Food

subsidy stood at about Rs 72,000 crore (Rs 720 billion) in last fiscal 2009-10.

The government has found that 100 million more Indians are actually living below the poverty

line than previously thought. Over 370 million Indians -- 40 per cent of the population -- are now

eligible for subsidised food supplies.

The poverty alleviation programmes are classified (Yesudian, C.A.K., 2007) into

(i) Self-employment programmes

(ii) Wage employment programmes

(iii)Food security programmes

(iv) Social-security programmes

(v) Urban poverty alleviation programmes

SELF-EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMMES

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This programme was started in 1970s in rural areas of the country in the name of Integrated

Rural Development Programme (IRDP) to increase the source of income of small farmers and

landless labourers. The beneficiaries were given subsidized credit, training, and infrastructure, so

that they could find new sources of earning. In this scheme, agricultural labourers and small

farmers received new skills to involve in vocations other than cultivating land. They included

fishery, animal husbandry, and forestry. In the 1980s, this scheme was extended to schedule

castes and tribes, women and rural artisans.

IRDP suffered from certain shortfalls:

It attempted to develop an entrepreneur out of the unskilled landless labourer, who has no

experience in managing an enterprise. Therefore, unviable projects were undertaken and

sub-critical investments were made leading to collapse of these micro-enterprises.

Banks were also indifferent to provide credits to the poor. It did not make a good banking

sense to provide a loan to individual poor farmer and landless labourer, who did not have

any experience in entrepreneurship.

Poor targeting was another problem, where many non-poor managed to get the benefits.

Considering the shortfalls of the IRDP, the government replaced this programme with

Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) in 1999. Considering the non-viability of the

enterprise of the poor individual and his/her poor credit worthiness, SGSY focused on groups to

lend money and develop micro-enterprises. This scheme involves the organization of the poor

into self-help groups or SHGs and are provided with credit, technology, infrastructure and

training. The SHG may consist of 10 to 20 members. Thus SGSY is a creditcum-subsidy

programme, where credit is the major component and subsidy is the minor component. It is a

credit driven programme back-ended with subsidy. Banks are generally comfortable with the

credit worthiness of the SHGs. Unlike the IRDP, SGSY is more an empowering process and it

focused on mainstreaming the poor to join the economic development of the country.

According to Asian Development Bank, microfinance is the provision of a broad range of

services such as deposits, loans, payment services, money transfers, and insurance to poor and

low-income households and their micro-enterprises. SGSY is one such micro-financing scheme

of the government. In India, this concept is adapted to the existing commercial banking system.

Instead of creating a parallel banking system for micro-credit the Reserve Bank of India issued a

policy circular in 1991 to all the commercial banks to participate actively and extend finance to

SHGs.

Banks had always problems of doing social banking with individuals, as they had to spend time

and resources to select those who would pay back the loan. But SHGs, as a group presented a

picture of solidarity among like-minded people committed to some micro-enterprise or

individual goal seem to be credit worthy for the bank. The bank also ensured that the loan is put

to use within 7 days for the purpose it was borrowed. Further, the banks allow SHGs to pay in

weekly installment of small amount. Apart from the bank credit, the SHGs received government

subsidy for their micro-enterprises. By using the existing banking system of the country, the

government has mainstreamed the rural poor into the formal financial system and to the market

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economy. From its inception in April 1999, 42.05 lakh self-help groups (SHGs) have been

formed under the SGSY with women SHGs accounting for about 60 per cent of the total.

By the end of March 2004, 1,232,768 SHGs have been linked to mainstream banks for savings

services, of which 1,079, 091 groups have accessed credit from more than 35,000 branches of

commercial, co-operative and rural banks. The cumulative credit disbursed to these groups was

US$ 887.32 million. With an average membership of 16, at least 19 million people have access

to formal savings facilities through SHGs, of which about 17 million have also accessed credit

services. This showed the magnitude and the impact of the programme in the country. It has

become a social movement across Indian villages.

As a poverty alleviation programme, the success of micro-finance is gauged from its ability to

service the population below the poverty line, i.e. targeting the poor. Compared to the normal

State led financial institutions, the micro-credit programme performed better in serving the poor.

But looking within the programme, various studies showed that only one-eighth of the

beneficiaries belonged to below poverty line. On the whole, the richest among the poor benefited

most and they have the capacity to use credit and technology to their advantage.

As a second indicator of evaluation of microfinancing is increased income and asset of the SHG

members. Hulme and Mosley study showed substantial income increase among the borrowers -

an increase of 202 per cent as compared to the non-borrowers. The increase was 133 per cent for

the BPL borrowers. This showed that the programme had surely benefited the BPL but at the

same time those above BPL could benefit disproportionately higher than the BPL borrowers.

In the same study, the researchers had found that those who adopted new technologies in their

micro-enterprises had benefited the most and they formed just 12 per cent of the beneficiaries.

The sustainability of the programme depends on the default rate of borrowers of the programme.

While Chavanet. al. claimed that the default rate of microcredit was high in India, Satish (2005)

found that the non-performing loan in his study area was zero per cent. We may need more

information from the banks to note that the default rate was less among the first and second time

borrowers as against third and fourth time borrowers. Further, the default rate increased with the

increase in size of the loan. The strength of the micro-credit programme of India is the linkage

between SHG and the existing banking institutions. It has helped the rural masses hitherto

outside the mainstream economy, to come within the mainstream economy of the country. Since

the existing banking infrastructure is used, the administrative cost is found to be low. It also gave

the bank the opportunity to penetrate into the rural areas and expand the banking operations in

the country.

However, evaluation of the SGSY by National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD), Bankers

Institute of Rural Development (BIRD) and several others showed mixed results. Out of the

estimated 25 million householdsorganizedinto SHGs up to 2010, only 22% were able to access

bank credit. The studies brought out significant variations in the extent of mobilization of the

poor SHGs and the quality of their functioning. The programme focusing on single livelihood

activity has not met multiple livelihood requirements of the poor. Often, the capital investment

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was provided up-front as a subsidy without adequate investment in social mobilization and group

formation.

Besides, uneven geographical spread of SHGs, high attrition rates among members of SHGs

and lack of adequate banking sector response, had impeded the program performance. Further,

several states were not able to fully invest the funds received under SGSY, indicating a lack of

appropriate delivery systems and dedicated efforts for skill training and building resource

absorption capacity among the rural poor. There was a considerable mismatch between the

capacity of implementing structures and the requirements of the program. Absence of collective

institutions in the form of SHG federations precluded the poor from accessing higher order

support services for productivity enhancement, marketing linkages and risk management.

It is in this context that the Ministry of Rural Development constituted a Committee on Credit

Related Issues under SGSY (under the Chairmanship of Prof. Radhakrishna) to look into

various aspects of the scheme implementation. The Committee recommended adoption of a

‘livelihoods approach’ to eliminate rural poverty, encompassing the four inter-related tasks of:

i. mobilizing all the poor households into functionally effective SHGs and their federations

ii. enhancing their access to bank credit and other financial, technical and marketing

services

iii. building their capacities and skills for gainful and sustainable livelihoods development

iv. converging various schemes for efficient delivery of social and economic support

services to poor with optimal results.

The government accepted the recommendation of the Committee and restructured SGSY into

National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) to provide greater focus and momentum for

poverty reduction and to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by 2015. NRLM is

also known as “Aajeevika”. The Mission was formally launched on 3rd June, 2011.NRLM has

the mandate of reaching out to 100 million rural poor in 6 lakh villages across the country.

During 2013-14, the total number of SHGs under NRLM fold is 13,15,437 of which 2,19,061 (or

17 per cent) have been mobilized in this financial year. Allocation for NRLM for 2013-14 has

been kept at Rs. 4000 crore, an increase of Rs. 85 crore over the previous year’s budget

estimates (BE). Of this, an amount of Rs. 858.41crore has been released up to September, 2013.

Several evaluation studies have shown that the rural livelihoods programmes have been

relatively successful in alleviating rural poverty wherever systematic mobilization of the poor

into SHGs, their capacity building and skill development, and forward and backward linkages

were taken up in a process-intensive manner. Dedicated administrative structures consisting of

professionals from the market, created in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, etc. for taking up

these tasks have immensely contributed to the success of SHG movement there. But elsewhere in

the country, in the absence of dedicated professional implementation structures and systematic

social mobilization and institution building activities, the progress of the scheme has been rather

slow. Besides various states are at different stages of progress in terms of institution building and

hence require state-specific strategies. Common centralized guidelines/strategies would not meet

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the needs of all the states. Hence differentiated or state specific strategies need to be developed

to cater to the specific requirements of each individual State.

NRLM has adopted ‘demand driven’ strategy, in place of SGSY’s ‘allocation based’ strategy.

This implies that under NRLM, states have greater autonomy to plan for implementing the

programme. NRLM encourages states to prepare State Perspective for Implementation Plans

(SPIP) for seven years and Annual Action Plans (AAPs). The allocation for the state is released

against the approved AAP. NRLM has adopted a Participatory Identification of Poor (PIP)

instead of the BPL to identify its beneficiaries.

NRLM rests on three major pillars – universal social mobilization, financial inclusion and

livelihoods enhancement. It works towards bringing at least one member (preferably a woman)

from all poor families into the SHG network. The SHGs and their federations offer their

members services such as savings, credit and livelihoods support. As the Institutions of the Poor

(IoP) mature, they are facilitated to take up livelihoods/income-generating activities.

NRLM is presently working in 1009 blocks in an ‘intensive’ mode. Of these, 50 blocks are being

developed as resource blocks to create local human and social capital (IoPs, internal Community

Resource Persons (CRPs) etc.) that would support in implementing NRLM in other blocks. The

implementation in resource blocks is supported by National Resource Organisations (NROs)

such as SERP (AP), Jeevika (Bihar), Kudumbashree (Kerala) etc. In about 50 blocks, NRLM is

partnering with existing Federations and NGOs to saturate the block. In the remaining intensive

blocks, the NRLM is fielding its field implementation teams.

NRLM’s presence in the remaining blocks in the country, referred as non-intensive blocks, is

limited to the extent of supporting the existing mobilization, strengthening the existing

institutions, providing revolving fund and bank linkages, and taking up other activities in a

limited way.

WAGE EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMMES

The main purpose of the wage employment programmes is to provide a livelihood during the

lean agricultural season as well as during drought and floods. Under these programmes, villagers

worked to improve the village infrastructure such as deepening the village ponds, constructing

village schools and improving the rural roads. Thus the programmes not only provided

employment to the villagers but also improved village infrastructure and created village public

assets. A positive fall out of this programme is that it created higher demand for village labour,

thereby pushing up the wage of the labourer in the villages.

Wage employment programmes were first started during the Sixth and Seventh Plan in the form

of National Rural Employment Programme (NREP) and Rural Landless Employment

Guarantee Programmes (RLEGP). These two programmes were later merged in 1989 into

more well-known Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY). The JRY was supposed to produce

employment for the unemployed and the underemployed and to improve the village

infrastructure and assets. The performance of JRY programme declined over a period of time. As

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a result, fewer jobs were generated. One of the reasons was lower allocation of funds for this

programme during the Ninth Plan period.

The JRY was revised and re-launched in April 1999 and was named as Jawahar Gram

Samridhi Yojana (JGSY). The secondary objective of the JRY has become the main objective,

i.e., creating economic assets and infrastructure for the village and the creation of employment is

a by-product of the main objective. In terms of wage employment, the new programme lagged

behind JRY. While the JRY produced 1.03 billion of man-days of labour in 1993-1994, the

JGSY produced just 270 million man-days each year. Since the programme was implemented by

the panchayats, many did not have the capacity and experience to implement the programme.

Further, the allocation of funds was inadequate to manage the programme. There are also

incidences of corruption by way of fudging the muster rolls.

A special wage employment programme in the name of Employment Assurance Scheme

(EAS) was launched on October 2, 1993 for the drought prone, desert, tribal and hill area blocks

in the country. It was further expanded to all the blocks in 1997-1998. The EAS is also meant for

providing employment during lean season. While the scheme emphasized on creating economic

and social assets in the village, it prohibited construction of panchayat buildings, secondary

school and college buildings and religious structures. The Food for Work Programme was

started as part of EAS in 8 drought prone States in 2000-2001. Here part of the wage was

provided in the form of food grains. Though food grains were supplied free of cost to these

States, the uptake of the food grains was very poor.

Considering the fragmented efforts of different wage employment programmes in the country, all

these programmes were merged into one programme called Sampoorna Gramin

RozgarYojana (SGRY) in 2001. The three-fold objective of this programme is generation of

employment for the rural poor, creation of community assets and infrastructure, and ensuring

food and nutrition security for the rural poor.

A review of different wage employment programmes in the Ninth Plan showed that there had

been erosion in the programme in terms of resource allocation and employment generation.

There was steady decline in employment generation in these programmes. The allocation for

these programmes came down from Eighth Plan to Ninth Plan. Ninth Plan allocation was only 88

per cent of the Eighth Plan. Further, the cost of generating employment had gone up during this

period. As a result, only 2.86 billion man-days of labour were produced during the Ninth Plan as

against 5.13 billion man-days of labour produced during the Eighth Plan period. Even the

allocated fund was very poorly utilized. A latest report collated by National Social Watch

Coalition shows that out of the Rs. 130 billion allocated for wage employment in rural areas,

only Rs. 65 billion was utilized, i.e. just 50 per cent of the allocated fund. (Asian Age, June 30,

2007).

The wage employment programmes suffered from various problems leading to poor

implementation of schemes. First of all, for the rural poor, it was difficult to understand the

nuances of the programme. As a result, they were cheated and false muster rolls were prepared to

siphon off the money. Second, the schemes suffered from the bureaucratic muddles. It is a

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centrally sponsored programme with rigid guidelines, which may not fit into local conditions. By

the time it reached the poor, it passed through the central government, State government,

panchayat and the beneficiary. At every level, there is red-tapism and delays leading to

underutilization of funds. Adding to all these, the government started reducing the allocation to

the wage employment programme from the Ninth Plan. It is totally a government managed

programme at every level and the poor is the silent or passive beneficiary of the scheme. The

poor had no say in the programme.

A comparison between the self-employment programmes and wage employment programmes

bring out contrasting results. While the performance of self-employment programmes improved

over a period of time by adopting SHG approach, the wage employment programme declined

over a period of time even after merging different programmes into one programme. The major

difference between the two programmes was participation of the poor in the programme. While

the SGSY (self-employment programme) was highly participative in nature and empowered the

poor to a great extent, the SGRY (wage employment programme) was implemented by the

government and the poor in the community were the passive beneficiaries. The administrative

cost was high and the scope of corruption was also high. As a result, fewer jobs were created

benefiting fewer poor persons. There were incidences of non-poor receiving the benefits and

ghost labourers were enrolled by fudging the muster rolls. Also the SGSY was totally managed

by the SHGs and the government played a supportive role. The least involvement of the

government administration surely reduced the administrative cost and increased the number of

beneficiaries of the programme. The scope of corruption was comparatively less in the SGSY, as

the SHGs are empowered and were aware of their rights and benefits.

However these programmes could not providesocial security to the rural poor. The Central

Government launched NREGA on February 2, 2006. NAREGA was further modified as

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in 2008. The Act

guarantees the right to work to by providing 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a

financial year to every rural household whose adultmembers are willing to do unskilled manual

work. NREGA is the first ever lawinternationally, that guarantees wage employment on an

extraordinary scale. NREGAcovers the entire country with the omission of districts that have 100

percent urban population. NREGA provides a statutory guarantee of wage employment and is

demand driven which ensures that employment is provided where and when it is most needed.

An employment guarantee gives labourers more confidence in the prospect of local employment

and discourages seasonal migration.

Unique features of the Act include; time bound employmentguarantee and wage payment within

15 days; unemployment allowance will be paid by the state government (as per the Act) in case

employment is not provided within 15days; and emphasis on labour intensive works prohibiting

the use of contractors, andmachinery. The Act also mandates 1/3 per cent participation for

women.

The works permitted under the Act address causes of chronic poverty like drought, deforestation

and soil erosion, so that employment generation is sustainable. The vision and mission of this act

is sustainable and inclusive growth of rural India for eradication of poverty by increasing

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livelihood opportunities, providing social safetynet and developing infrastructure for growth. At

the national level, with the average wage paid under the MGNREGA increasing from ₹ 65 in FY

2006-07 to Rs. 259 in FY 2015-16, the bargaining power of agricultural labour has increased.

Current wage vary from Rs. 259 (highest) in Haryana from 167 (lowest) in Jharkhand, Madhya

Pradesh, Bihar and Chhattisgarh. In Rajasthan it is Rs. 181. (Circular of Ministry of Rural

Development dated 29 March, 2016)

Improved economic outcomes, especially in watershed activities, and reduction indistress

migration are its other achievements.

During 2015-16, a total of 4.80 crore households have been provided employment with the share

of SCs, STs and Women at 22.31 per cent, 18.19 per cent and 50.30 per cent respectively. The

person-days employment for women is well above the stipulation of 1/3 as per the Act. Rs

38,500 crore have been allocated for MGNREGA in 2016-17. If the total amount is spent, it will

be highest budget spend on MGNREGA,

Research studies on MGNREGA have pointed out many positive effects of the scheme. These

are as follows:

MGNREGA has led to a significant increase in monthly per capita consumption expenditure of

rural households. It is succeeding as a self-targeting programme with high participation from

marginalized groups including the SCs and STs. In the case of both SCs and STs, the

participation rate exceeded their share in total population. It has reduced the traditional gender

wage discrimination in the public works and has had a positive impact on the socio-economic

status of women.

MGNREGA works have been described as "Green" and "Decent" i.e. the scheme creates decent

working conditions by ensuring workers’ rights and legal entitlements, providing social

protection and employment and environmentally sustainable works that re-generate the eco-

system and protect bio-diversity. Where planned and implemented well, MGNREGA works have

led to a rise in ground water, improvement in soil quality and reduction in vulnerability of

production system to climate variability. However, some studies have pointed out that the extent

and kind of impact of MGNREGA works on the environment depend on the scale of the

activities undertaken, the technical design, the quality of assets created and ownership and use of

physical structures constructed.

MGNREGA has had a more direct and positive impact on reducing distress migration as

compared to migration taken-up for economic growth and other reasons. It is also important as a

supplementary source of income and is being used by rural households for starting their own

ventures.

However, there are some major governance and institutional factors which limit the scope of

MGNREGA in breaking the vicious circle in poor states.

This is due to these states having higher demand for work but lesser capacity to implement

MGNREGA effectively because of institutional factors and end up with greater unmet demand

for work. Studies also reveal less awareness levels among the potential beneficiaries regarding

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the provision of the Act, such as demanding work, unemployment allowance, grievance redressal

mechanism including social audit, etc. Planning and prioritization of the works is to be made by

the Gram Sabhas (GS) which should ensure that the development needs are addressed through

active participation of the villagers. But GSs are held infrequently, showing low participation at

GSs for selection and prioritization of works and in some of the states like Himachal Pradesh,

Jharkhand, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, less than 50 per cent of the total works in terms

of costs were executed by GPs which is against the mandate of the law.

Wages and payments are often less than the notified wage and there are delays in payment due to

inadequate staff and other institutional factors. Inadequate staff, irregular flow of funds coupled

with the problems of poor coverage/network of banks/ post offices and illiterate workers are also

responsible for delay in payment as mentioned in different studies.

Unemployment data under current daily status (CDS) measure shows that at the beginning of the

MGNREGA in 2005, unemployment was 34.3 million person days (in 2004-05) and gradually

declined since then to 28.0 million person days in 2009-10 and further to 24.7 million person

days in 2011-12. Poverty in India has also declined (as per Planning Commission estimates using

the Tendulkar methodology) with the poverty ratio in the country coming down from 37.2 per

cent in 2004-05 to 21.9 per cent in 2011-12.

FOOD SECURITY PROGRAMME

Meeting the very basic need of access to food is a major challenge to the government in the post-

economic reform era. Those who are below poverty line are faced with the problem of meeting

this very basic need. Starvation and hunger have been reported in different parts of the country,

even in economically advanced States like Maharashtra. There is malnutrition in all age groups,

especially among children. Problem of low birth weight due to under nutrition of mother during

pregnancy and underweight of children are rampant in the country. The purchasing power of

certain section of the society is so low that they cannot access food at the market price. They

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need the safety net of food subsidy. In this context, public distribution system or PDS assumes

importance.

The PDS was originally a universal public distribution system or UPDS. The original UPDS was

not conceived as an anti-poverty programme. The main objective was to create a demand for

food grains thereby farmers benefiting from their produce. It was meant for price stabilization of

food grains by giving price support. Due to widespread poverty in the country, the purchasing

power for food grains was low but the supply of food was increasing. As a result, farmers got

lower prices for their produce prompting the government to provide support prices and procure

the food grains. Thus the government had to sit with overstock of food grains in the absence of a

food distribution system. Thus the UPDS was a means to distribute the food grains to the people.

Thus this strategy provided food subsidy to the consumers and price support to the farmers.

In the post-economic reform era, the PDS became a very significant poverty alleviation

programme of the government. The central government initiated a new PDS programme in June

1997 and called it targeted public distribution system or TPDS. Under this scheme, the States are

to identify households below poverty line and provide them 10 kg of food grains at highly

subsidized price and this amount was raised to 20 kg in April 2000. In addition, some States have

provided additional quantity of food grains or increased the food basket by adding edible oil,

sugar and cereals to the BPL households.

The cost of operating the PDS is three-fold. First cost component is the subsidy of the

programme. The cost of procuring the food grain is higher than the price of selling it through the

PDS. Second component of the cost is the administrative cost involved in procurement, transport

and storing. The last component is the loss due to wastage and pilferage that occur at different

stages of PDS-procurement to distribution.

The National Food Security Act, 2013 provides for coverage of up to 75% of the rural population

and up to 50% of the urban population for receiving subsidized food grains under Targeted

Public Distribution System (TPDS), thus covering about two-thirds of the population. The

eligible persons will be entitled to receive 5 Kgs of food grains per person per month at

subsidised prices of Rs. 3/2/1 per Kg for rice/wheat/coarse grains. The existing Antyodaya Anna

Yojana (AAY) households, which constitute the poorest of the poor, will continue to receive 35

Kgs of food grains per household per month. The Act also has a special focus on the nutritional

support to women and children. Besides meal to pregnant women and lactating mothers during

pregnancy and six months after the child birth, such women will also be entitled to receive

maternity benefit of not less than Rs. 6,000.

One of the problems of PDS is the diversion of food grain to the open market. Various studies

show that onethird of the grains supplied to PDS leaked into the open market in the UPDS

programme. The leakage level had increased to 41 per cent in the TPDS programme because the

price gap between the TPDS and the open market was wider than the price difference between

UPDS and the open market price. Even the urban poor community is not aware of what they are

entitled in the PDS. As a result, the fair price shop owners cheated them. The situation must be

worse among the rural poor.

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Another problem was the purchasing power of the poor. The food grain is supplied to them once

in a fortnight. It is difficult for the families living below poverty line to buy food grains for 2

weeks in one go. Under the TPDS programme, the quota of food grains was increased to 20 kg.

The very poor do not have the purchasing power to buy such large quantity of food grains at a

time. This resulted in many not availing the PDS and the unutilized food grain was diverted to

the open market.

Targeting was a major problem in the TPDS programme. According to Jha and Srinivasan, “the

selection of beneficiaries was not transparent and the basis for selection was too complicated

for the local officials to administer”. It also involves high cost in identifying the poorest among

the poor. As TPDS narrowly targets at the household level, it requires very detailed data for these

households and a complex and expensive means testing process.

Apart from the issues of transparency, administrative complications and high cost, social and

political factors played a role in identifying BPL families. Caste factor played a role in rural

areas. In urban areas, the issue of “residency” played a role. Those who are not “residents” but

living in the slum are not considered for the food subsidy. They are mainly migrants. Those who

are not in favour of the ruling leadership were not included in the list of BPL. In urban areas,

those who are not living in dwellings but on the roadside (pavement dweller) are the poorest

among the poor but they are excluded from the TPDS because they do not have an address in the

city.

According to Parikh, a majority of the poorest of the bottom 20 per cent of the households in the

north and north-eastern States do not procure any food grains from the PDS. Dutta &Ramaswami

found that 20 per cent of the poor in Maharashtra do not buy food grains from PDS due to lack of

access. Ramaswamy had calculated the cost of subsidy and found that it costs Rs. 3.14 and Rs.

4.00 to transfer a rupee to the target group of bottom 40 per cent in Andhra Pradesh and

Maharashtra respectively. The cost of food subsidy is high because of targeting errors and lapses

in implementation.

Though PDS is a very important poverty alleviation programme directly acting as safety net for

the very poor, it suffered from several problems during the implementation. Due to the

centralized procurement system, it incurred very high administrative cost. Further, there were

problems of wastage and pilferage at every stage of its operation. Then there are problems at the

consumer level in terms of buying a large quantity of food grains at a time from the fair price

shops.

Finally, the problem of targeting was a major issue, where non-poor are included and many BPL

groups like migrants and pavement dwellers are left out of PDS. All these problems led to much

lesser benefits reaching the poor. While the PDS has very high potential to protect the poor from

starvation and hunger, problems of its implementation have reduced its actual potential to a great

extent.

Current status

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The green revolution initiated in the late 1960s was a historic watershed that transformed thefood

security situation in India. It tripled food grain production over the next three or four decades and

consequently reduced by over 50 percent both the levels of food insecurity and poverty in the

country, this was achieved in spite of the increase in population during the period, which almost

doubled. The country succeeded in the laudable task of becoming a food self-sufficient nation, at

least at the macro level.

The per capita dietary energy supply increased significantly from 2370 kcal/day in the early

1990s to about 2440 kcal/day in 2001-03 and to 2550 kcal/day in 2006-08. The prevalence

ofundernourishment in the total population also decreased from 25 to 20 per cent during the

periodof 1990 to 2000, and as many as 58 million individuals were estimated to have come out

of thepoverty trap. The absolute number of poor persons came down from 317 million to 259

millionwith other livelihood indicators such as the literacy rate and longevity increasing

substantially.

The life expectancy at birth for males and females respectively, in 2005-06 was 63 and 66

yearsrespectively as compared to that in 1986-91, which was as low as 58 and 59 years for males

and females respectively. (Agricultural Statistics at a Glance; 2007)

It found 29.4 per cent of children (aged less than three years) to be underweight (low in weight

for their age), while 15 per cent were wasted (low weight for their height) and 38.7 per cent were

stunted (low in height for age). ( According to Global Nutrition Report 2015 by the International

Food Policy Research Institute)

SOCIAL SECURITY PROGRAMMES

Social security programmes are meant for those who are at the bottom of the BPL facing

destitution and desertion. The central government has launched the National Social Assistance

Programme or NSAP in August 1995. Under NSAP, there are three schemes. The first one is

the National Old Age Pension Scheme or NOAPS. A pension amount of Rs. 75 per month is

given to those who are above the age of 65 years and are destitute without any regular source of

income or support from any family members or relatives. Though it is a very useful scheme for

the elderly destitute, the coverage of the programme was not satisfactory. In the year 1999-2000,

8.71 million eligible elderly were identified, but the scheme could reach out to only 5 million

beneficiaries. It was found that the benefits really reached the poor and the leakage rate was

found to be low.

In addition to NOAP, the government has launched another programme called Annapurna in

April 2000 for those elderly who are eligible for NOAPS but did not receive it due to budgetary

constraints. They are given 10 kilograms of food grains per month free of cost. This programme

did not take root in many States. As a result, only Rs. 174.4 million were utilized out of the

allocated fund of Rs. 990.5 million in the year 2000-2001.

The second scheme under NSAP is National Family Benefit Scheme or NFBS. Under this

scheme, a lump sum of Rs. 10,000 is paid to a family, where the breadwinner of the family died

14 | P a g e

of natural or accidental causes. The total amount is given to a member of the deceased family

who has assumed the role of head of family. This scheme is available to BPL families only.

Another scheme under NSAP is National Maternity Benefit Scheme or NMBS. Under this

scheme, a lump sum of Rs. 500 is given to pregnant women belonging to the BPL households.

The pregnant woman should be 19 years or above and the sum is given 8 to 12 weeks before

delivery. The purpose of the scheme is to enhance the nutritional intake of these pregnant women

during pregnancy to safe guard the life and health of the mother and the infant.

Though there are large numbers of persons needing protection under NSAP, these social security

schemes are small and their outreach is limited. In the absence of universal social security

scheme as seen in Europe, those who are at the bottom of the BPL are left to destitution and

desertion. It is the responsibility of the government to take care of those who do not have any

support in the community.

URBAN POVERTY ALLEVIATION PROGRAMME:

Urban poverty is the spillover effect of rural poverty. It is the push factor rather than the pull

factor that is driving the urbanization process in most developing countries like India. Due to

acute poverty in rural areas, the poor tend to migrate to cities (push factor) in search of work.

Since they do not have any employable skills to get employment in the formal sector of the

cities, they end up doing odd jobs in the informal sector of the city. Since normal housing is not

affordable to them, they settle in lands that are not developed for housing, thus forming slums in

cities. Living conditions in some of these slums are more depressive than the living conditions of

the rural poor in villages.

It is estimated that a quarter of the population in large cities (million plus population) lives in

slums. In a city like Mumbai, a majority of 60 per cent of the population live in slum and slum

like housing. Central, State and municipal governments use the dual approach of providing

minimum amenities to some slums that are well established and also try to demolish and evict

the poor to prevent the spread of slums in the city.

Comparable to the self-employment and wage employment programmes in rural areas is the

Nehru RozgarYojana in urban areas in 1989. It has three components. The first one is the

Scheme of Urban Micro Enterprises (SUME). Under SUME, the urban poor (annual income

less than Rs. 11,850) are provided training to learn new skills to start micro-enterprises. The

beneficiary gets a 25 per cent government subsidy with a ceiling of Rs. 5,000 for the scheduled

caste/tribe and women and Rs. 4,000 for general beneficiaries. They get a bank credit of

Rs.15,000 for schedule caste/tribe and women, and Rs. 12,000 for general beneficiaries. Though

the central government has made provision for giving training and subsidy for starting

microenterprises, it is not known as to how many of them have actually started micro-enterprises

after receiving the training. Between 1990 and 1994, the government had made financial

provision to start 621,000 microenterprises but only 149,000 were trained in various trades to

start micro-enterprises. Out of those trained, how many were able to start micro-enterprises was

not known.

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The second scheme is the Scheme of Urban Wage Employment or SUWE. Under SUWE, the

labour of the urban poor is utilized to create socially and economically useful public assets. This

scheme is applicable to small towns with a population of less than 100,000.

The third component is the Scheme of Housing and Shelter Upgradation (SHASU). Under

SHASU, the urban poor is given a loan not exceeding Rs. 9,950 and a subsidy of Rs. 1,000. The

beneficiary may opt for additional loan of Rs. 19,500 from HUDCO.

Nehru RozgarYojana is implemented by the local self-government with the active participation

of nongovernmental organizations. Compared to the need of the urban poor, the financial

allocation is very small and hence only a few could benefit from this programme.

The largest urban poverty alleviation programme currently operating in the country is the Urban

Basic Services for Poor or UBSP. It is based on the principle of community development

involving the community, especially women to improve their communities and environment.

This programme is implemented in 25 States and 6 union territories covering 296 cities. Ten

million urban poor are benefited from this programme. More than 130,000 women work as

volunteers in this programme. The programme is a partnership of city, State and central

governments along with NGOs and UNICEF.

Unlike other urban poverty alleviation programmes, which have specific service components,

UBSP follows a different approach. Communities are encouraged to prepare their own

community mini plan based on their local needs and UBSP addresses these local needs. UBSP

has a strong health, nutrition, water and sanitation components. The programme addresses the

issue of low immunization coverage and poor utilization of antenatal care among the urban poor.

It is claimed, “dramatic improvements have been seen in health and education indicators”.

Though urban population is less than 30 per cent of the total population, the country is going to

get urbanized soon. In States like Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, almost half of the total

population is living in urban areas. These governments have to develop strategies to deal with the

problems of the urban poor.

CURRENT STATUS OF POVERTY IN INDIA

In September 2011, the Planning Commission's estimates based on the Tendulkar committee had

drawn flak for concluding that those earning more than Rs 33 in urban areas and Rs 27 in rural

areas would not be considered poor.

Poverty in India is widespread, and a variety of methods have been proposed to measure it. The

official measure of Indian government, before 2005, was based on food security and it was

defined from per capita expenditure for a person to consume enough calories and be able to pay

for associated essentials to survive.

Poverty Headcount Ratio (2010)

Poverty Trends World Bank

Live less than $1.25 a day 32.7% (400million)

Live less than $2 a day 68.7% (841 million)

Live less than $2.5 a day 81.1% (992 million)

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Live less than $4 a day 93.7% (1,148 millio)

Live less than $5 a day 96.9%(1,179 million)

*Source- World Bank

In 2012, the Indian government stated 21.9% of its population is below its official poverty limit.

The World Bank, in 2011 based on 2005's PPPs International Comparison Program, estimated

23.6% of Indian population, or about 276 million people, lived below $1.25 per day on

purchasing power parity. According to report of C Rangarajan committee (2014) a person

spending more than Rs 47 in urban areas and Rs 32 in rural areas per day, will not be considered

poor. Dismissing the Tendulkar committee report on estimating poverty, the Rangarajan

committee further states that the number of poor in India was much higher in 2011-12 at 29.5%

of the population. According to this report, 3 out of 10 people in India are poor.

Beyond economic benefit:

From the above review of poverty alleviation programmes, one gets the impression that these

programmes are not benefiting the poor in terms of increasing their income. For example, the

PDS is plagued with seepage, corruption, high administrative cost and targeting errors. Self-

employment programmes like the micro-credit scheme is better utilized by the non-poor or those

who are above BPL. Wage employment programme is caught in red-tapism and administrative

delays leading to poor utilization of the allocated funds. All these factors have been used by

some economists to argue against these programmes and to suggest the winding up the

programmes. Looking at purely narrow economic point of view is not the right approach to

poverty alleviation. Poverty does not mean not having enough income alone. Poverty means not

having access to a whole lot of services like education, health services, water supply, sanitation

and so on. It also means loss of status in the community, exclusion from certain social functions,

and a sense of inferiority in the group or community. In short, poverty means marginalization of

an individual or household in the community.

There is no denial that poverty alleviation programmes should lead to high income to the poor

but to come out of the culture of poverty, one needs to be empowered and also requires access to

basic services.

While some of the poverty alleviation programmes discussed above, may not be performing well

in terms of utilizing the allocated funds and increasing the income of the poor, these programmes

have contributed to the social arena of poverty. For example, wage employment programme was

not very successful in terms of utilizing the allocated resources and generating additional

employment for the BPL. But this programme has created village level assets and infrastructure

in terms of schools, health centers, roads and ponds. Similarly, SHGs formed by the women has

given them tremendous confidence and empowered them to become entrepreneurs. Today, SHGs

are not only active in creating micro-enterprises but also they are involved in implementing

community programmes like immunization programmes, literacy programmes and so on. Some

of them have empowered to the level of contesting panchayat elections and become members of

Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRI). Again there is no denial that all these cannot be achieved

without an increase in income. Therefore, the economic and social aspects of poverty alleviation

17 | P a g e

are interlinked to one another. Economic upliftment alone cannot alleviate poverty but it must

lead to social upliftment in terms of access to services, empowerment and independence.

Therefore, the current poverty alleviation programmes in the country should broaden their focus

and goal in addition to increasing income to achieve the target of removing poverty from the

country.

Towards poverty alleviation

First of all, involvement of the local communities is key to the success of poverty alleviation

programmes. In the absence of community involvement, the programmes are plagued with

bureaucratic muddle and corruption at every level. Wage employment is an example to show

how too much of administrative interference has led to underutilization of funds, high

administrative cost, corruption and poor employment generation. Contrary to the wage

employment programme, self-employment programmes like microcredit is successful because of

people’s participation in the form of SHGs. The government has taken a major step in this

direction in the form of 73rd and 74th amendment to the constitution to give more powers to

PRI. While a few States have made use of these constitutional provision better than others, most

of the States still lag behind handing over these programmes to PRIs. While PRIs are created in

most of the States and elections are held, these institutions are not given the financial resources,

administrative powers and the capacity to run programmes. State governments still hold the

financial powers and the PRI is not in a position to plan and decide based on their needs. The

administrative machinery of the PRI is very week to carry out these national level programmes.

Also, the PRI does not have the capacity to handle resources and technical capacity to implement

programmes. These issues have to be addressed immediately to strengthen PRI to implement

poverty alleviation programmes.

If the PRIs are stronger, then the decentralization of the poverty alleviation programme can take

place. Currently, all the poverty alleviation programmes have national guidelines with very little

space to maneuverto meet the local needs. For example, in the current PDS, the food grains are

supplied every fortnight making it difficult for the poor to buy high quantity of grains at a time.

This should be left to the local communities to decide the frequency of selling grains to the BPL.

Further, targeting the BPL is a major issue in TPDS, where targeting error is high resulting in

seepage of benefits to non-poor. Identifying the BPL household is a labourious process. It is time

consuming and costly. Targeting can be done differently for different settings and places.

Geographical targeting in very backward districts of the country may be an easy way of targeting

the poor. In another setting like a slum, it may be the female-headed households that can be

targeted for the TPDS. Similarly, all the pavement dwellers can be targeted for the TPDS in large

cities.

In the case of wage employment programmes, the local communities through PRI mechanism

should be able to identify the beneficiaries and also to identify the type of work to be carried out

in villages that can create economic and social asset to the village. Such decentralization can

generate more man-days of work to a large number of poor persons as well as meaningful

community assets and infrastructure. Thus decentralization and localization are important to

make the poverty alleviation programme efficient and relevant for the poor.

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Apart from decentralization and community involvement, participation of the poor in the

programme that affects their welfare, is important. Some of the self-employment schemes failed

to take off because no effort was made to involve the poor in identifying the skills, which they

can learn easily. As a result, the skills imparted are not utilized. Some of the skills imbibed may

not have job potential in the community. On the positive side, micro-enterprise under the self-

employment programme was successful because of the role of SHGs. The SHG members

actively participated in the whole process and decided for themselves for the kind of skills they

wanted to learn and also the kind of credit they needed from the bank to start the microenterprise.

Many well-intentioned programmes fail to take off because of lack of understanding of the

ground realities due to lack of participation of the beneficiaries.

At the macro-level, there is a need to co-ordinate a myriad of poverty alleviation programmes of

the central government and the State governments. The transfer of central funds to the States for

different programmes should be efficient. Currently, such funds and goods like food grains are

not fully utilized by the States. There is a need to strengthen the financial management capacity

of certain States to use the funds efficiently. These are the States where the percentage of the

BPL is more than the national average.

It is unfortunate to note that in an era of rapid economic growth, public funding for the social

sector has come down drastically. Central funding as well as the State funding in many major

States have decreased in the era of economic reform and rapid economic growth. The fruits of

economic growth should be ploughed into the social sector to elevate the quality of life in the

country by raising the economic and social status of the population. It makes good economic

sense also, because better quality of human resource in terms of better health status, employable

skills and better purchasing power will add on to the economic investment of the country.

ANALYSIS OF PROGRAMMES FOR WOMEN DEVELOPMENT

There is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women. —Kofi

Annan

Women empowerment means emancipation of women from the vicious grips of social,

economical, political, caste and gender-based discrimination. It means granting women the

freedom to make life choices. Women empowerment does not mean ‘deifying women’ rather it

means replacing patriarchy with parity.

The Planning Commission defined three major areas in which they had paid special attention to

women’s development.

a) Education,

b) Social welfare and

c) Health.

A planned approach to provide special thrust to the welfare of women was adopted with the

launching of the first five year plan in 1951.

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The First Five Year Plan (1951–56) contemplated welfare measures for women. To implement

welfare measures for the benefit of poor women, the Central Social Welfare Board (CSWB) was

established to deal with the problems of women. The CSWB recognized and realized the need

for organizing women into Mahila Mandals or women’s club as an approach to community

development.

The Second Five Year Plan (1956 – 61) intimately concentrated overall intensive agricultural

development. However, the welfare approach to women’s issues was determined recognizing

women as workers. Further, protection against injuries at work, maternity benefits and crèches

for their children.

The Third Five Year Plan (1961 – 66) sincerely recognized the greater importance of education

for women which has been a major welfare strategy for women. This plan allocated the largest

share for expending social welfare services and condensed courses of education. As regards to

wealth, maternal and child welfare programmes were proclaimed in terms of maternal and child

welfare, health education, nutrition and family planning.

Thus the emphasis on women education was continued during the Fourth Five Year Plan also

(1969 – 1974). The basic policy was to promote women’s welfare as the base of operation. The

outlay on family planning was stepped up to reduce the birth rate through education.

Immunization of pre-school children and supplemental feeding, expectant and nursing mothers8 .

Need for training women in respect of income generating activities and their protection was

stressed in the Fifth Five Year Plan. Further, the fifth plan also recommended a strategic

programme of functional literacy to equip women with skills and knowledge to perform the

functions as a good housewife. Under the health programmes, the primary objective was to

provide minimum public health facilities integrated with family planning and nutrition for

vulnerable groups, children, pregnant and lactating mothers9

The Fifth Year Plan was happened to be during the decade of International Women’s decade and

the submission of the Report of the Committee on the status of women in India (CSWI)

“Towards Equality”. The CSWI had comprehensively examined the rights and status of women

in the context of changing social and economic conditions and the problems relating to the

advancement of women. The CSWI reported that the dynamics of social change and

development had adversely affected a large section of women and had created new imbalances

and disparities.

It was realized that constitutional guarantees of equality would be meaningless and unrealistic

unless women’s right to economic independence is acknowledged and their training in skills as

contributors to the family and the national economy was improved. Consequently National Plan

of Action (1976) providing the guidelines based on ‘United Nations’ World Plan of Action for

women’ came into force. The National Plan of Action identified areas of health, family planning,

nutrition, education, employment, legislation and social welfare for formulating and

implementing of action programmes for women and called for planned interventions to improve

the conditions of women in India. The women’s welfare as development bureau was setup in

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1976 to act as a nodal point within the Government of India to co-ordinate policies and

programmes and initiate measures for women’s development.

The Sixth Five Year Plan stressed the need of economic independence educational advance and

access to health care and family planning as essential for women’s development. So the strategy

was threefold: of education, employment and health. They are independent and dependent on the

total developmental process.

The Seventh Five Year Plan sought to generate awareness among women about their rights and

privileges. The long term objectives of developmental programmes in the Seventh plan were to

raise women’s economic and social status in order to bring them into the mainstream of national

development and recognized the importance of women in contributing to the various

socioeconomic, political and cultural activities. The seventh plan emphasized the need to open

new avenues of work for women and perceive them as crucial resource for the development of

the country. Another salient and crucial recognition was the need for organisation of women

workers and unionization.

Under the plan, a new scheme, “Women’s Development Corporation” has been taken up for

promoting employment generating activities by supporting schemes from women’s group and

women from poorer sections of society. A women’s development planning and monitoring cell

was also set up for collection of data and monitoring of plan programmes. A very significant step

therein was to identify and promote beneficiary oriented programmes which extended direct

benefits to women.

During the 7th Plan period, the Indian Parliament adopted a National Policy on Education 1986

included a chapter on Education for women’s equality.

The strategy in the Eighth Plan was to ensure that the benefits of development from different

sectors did not bypass women and special programmes were implemented to complement the

general programmes. The main objective of Eighth Plan was to extend the reach of services to

women both qualitatively and quantitatively. Panchayati Raj institutions are involved in the

designing and implementation of women’s programmes.

The approach of the Eighth Plan made a definite shift from development to empowerment of

women. In order to meet the needs of women and children, there had been a progressive increase

in the plan outlays over the time of eight

The Ninth Five Year Plan came into effect from April 1, 1997. An approach paper had been

developed by the Planning Commission and accepted by the National Development Council,

which had become basis for developing Ninth Five Year Plan. In this approach paper focus was

laid on empowerment of women and people’s participation in planning and implementation of

strategies.

An important objective in the Approach paper was the empowerment of women. In planning

process, empowerment at the outset, means choices for women and opportunities to avail of

these choices. The supportive environment should be provided to women at all stages by the

home, school, religion, government and work place.

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A supportive environment was one that gender sensitive. In all regional meetings, participants

asked for gender sensitization or training at all levels in public and private sectors.

Women are facing problems like feminization of poverty, inadequate investment in social

sectors, increasing violence against women and stereotyped portrayal of women in private and

state media especially television. There is necessity for information and training opportunities,

reservations and social services etc., and people’s involvement is necessary for the success of

any programme. Empowerment is about choices and the ability exercise women’s choices will be

limited unless they are more involved in policy-making. The 9th

Five Year Plan is an attempt to

bring in women’s issues within the policymaking spheres.

The Government has set up a national resource units for women which acts as an apex body for

promoting and incorporating gender perspectives in politics and programmes of the government.

To achieve the goals laid down there in, a number of initiatives have been launched. They

include enactment of legislation to ban sex determination tests so as to prevent female feticide.

Equally important is the fact that the state governments are also drawing up plans of action to

cater to local requirements and ensure the holistic development of the girl child.

The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Acts of 1993 ensure reservation of 1/3 of seats for

women in all elected offices of local bodies, in rural and urban areas. In the rural areas, women

have thus been brought to the centre-stage in the nation’s efforts to strengthen democratic

institions20.

The Tenth Plan aims at empowering women through translating the recently adopted National

Policy for Empowerment of Women (2001) into action and ensuring ‘survival’ protection and

development of children through rights based approach.

The Eleventh Plan Approach paper aimed to raise the sex ratio for the age group 0 – 6 to 935 by

2011 – 12 and to 950 by 2016 – 17. Further, this plan intends to ensure 33 percent of the direct

and indirect beneficiaries of all government schemes are women and girl children. It also

proposes to ensure that all children enjoy a safe childhood without any compulsion to work.

National Policy for Empowerment of Women, 2001- The policy aims at upliftment, development

and empowerment in socio-economic and politico–cultural aspects, by creating in them

awareness on various issues in relation to their empowerment.

It was, for the first time that a chapter on women and development had been documented in the

Sixth Plan. According to the document four strategies namely (i) Economic independence, (ii)

educational advance, (iii) access to health care and family planning (iv) income supplementing of

tribal women, were emphasized.

The Eighth Five Year Plan strategy for women’s development covers new thrust areas such as

improving women’s education, database, enumeration of women workers, and provision of

supportive services, encouraging women’s organizations and stepping up social security

measures. The government has also initiated certain programmes for women. They are social

welfare, nutrition service, supplement income generation, girls education, equal remuneration for

equal work, hostels for working women and crèches for children, functional and legal literacy,

22 | P a g e

family, promotion and strengthening of self-employment, review and streamlining laws

concerning women etc.,

The Ministry of women and child development, as the nodal agency

for all matters pertaining to welfare, development and empowerment of women,

has evolved schemes and programmes for their benefit. These schemes are

spread across a broader spectrum such as women’s need for shelter, security,

safety, legal aid, justice, information, maternal health, food, nutrition etc., as well

as their need for economic sustenance through skill development, education and

access to credit and marketing.

The schemes of the Ministry like Swashakti, Swayamsidha, Support to Training and

Employment Programme (STEP) and Swawlamban enable economic empowerment.

Working Women Hostels and Creches provide support services. Swadhar and Short Stay

Homes provide protection and rehabilitation to women in difficult circumstances. The Ministry

also supports autonomous bodies like National Commission, Central Social Welfare Board

and Rashtriya Mahila Kosh which work for the welfare and

development of women. These schemes started in Tenth Plan.

Present Women Empowerment Schemes include:

Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Scheme

One Stop Centre Scheme

Women Helpline Scheme

Ujjawala: A Comprehensive Scheme for Prevention of trafficking and Resue,

Rehabilitation and Re-integration of Victims of Trafficking and Commercial Sexual

Exploitation

Working Women Hostel

Rajiv Gandhi National Creche Scheme For the Children of Working Mothers

Swadhar Greh (A Scheme for Women in Difficult Circumstances)

Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women (STEP)

Nari Shakti Puraskar

Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY) - A Conditional Maternity Benefit

Scheme

Current status of women development

Women of India slowly started recognizing her true potential. She has started questioning the

rules laid down for her by the society. As a result, she has started breaking barriers and earned a

respectable position in the world. Today modern woman is so deft and self-sufficient that she can

be easily called a superwoman, juggling many fronts single handedly. Women are now fiercely

ambitious and are proving their metal not only on the home front, but also in their respective

professions. Women in Indian are coming up in all spheres of life. They are joining the

universities and colleges in large numbers. They are entering into all kinds of professions like

23 | P a g e

engineering, medicine, politics, teaching, etc. A nation’s progress and prosperity can be judged

by the way it treats its women folk.

There is a slow and steady awareness regarding giving the women their dues, and not mistreating

them, seeing them as objects of possession. Despite progress, the very fact that women, along

with being achievers, also are expected to fulfill their roles as wives or mothers, prioritizing

home against anything else. This point of view hasn’t changed much. There is still a large section

of women who are uneducated, and married off before the age of 18. Families are required to

supply a chaste daughter to the family of her future husband. Also very few women are actually

employed in good-paying jobs, and hence parents don’t see the point of spending money on

girls’ education.

Statistics say that close to 245 million Indian women lack the basic capability to read and write,

which is a large number. Only 13.9% women are employed in the urban sector, and 29% in the

domestic and agriculture sector, where too a majority of women are exploited by the men. The

sex ratio of India shows that the Indian society is still prejudiced against female, and a lot is yet

to be achieved in this context.

The path towards total gender empowerment is full of potholes. Over the years women have

made great strides in many areas with notable progress in reducing some gender gaps. Yet

realities such as 11,332 women and girls getting trafficked every year, and increased practice of

dowry, rape and sexual harassment hit hard against all the development that has taken place.

Thus, if on one hand women are climbing the ladder of success, on the other hand she is mutely

suffering the violence afflicted on her by her own family members. As compared with past

women in modern times have achieved a lot but in reality they have to still travel a long way.

Women may have left the secured domains of their home, but a harsh, cruel, exploitative world

awaits them, where women have to prove their talent against the world who see women as

merely vassals of producing children. The Indian women has to make her way through all the

socialized prejudices against her, and the men yet have to allow and accept the women to be

equal participants in the country’s way forward.

A total of 2,44,270 incidents of crime against women (both under IPC and SLL) were reported in

the country during the year 2012 as compared to 2,28,650 in the year 2011 recording an increase

of 6.4% during the year 2012. These crimes have continuously increased during 2008 – 2012

with 1,95,856 cases in the year 2008, 2,03,804 cases in 2009 and 2,13,585 cases in 2010 and

2,28,650 cases in 2011 and 2,44,270 cases in the year 2012. West Bengal with 7.5% share of

country’s female population has accounted for nearly 12.7% of total crime against women by

reporting 30,942 cases during the year 2012.

There are several challenges that are currently plaguing the issues of women’s rights in India. A

few of these challenges are presented below:

Education: While the country has grown from leaps and bounds since its independence

where education is concerned, the gap between women and men is severe. While 82.14%

of adult men are educated, only 65.46% of adult women are known to be literate in India.

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Health &Safety:The health and safety concerns of women are paramount for the

wellbeing of a country, and is an important factor in gauging the empowerment of

women in a country. However there are alarming concerns where maternal healthcare is

concerned.In its 2009 report, UNICEF came up with shocking figures on the status of

new mothers in India. The maternal mortality report of India stands at 301 per 1000, with

as many as 78,000 women in India dying of childbirth complications in that year. Today,

due to the burgeoning population of the country, that number is sure to have multiplied

considerably. The main causes of maternal mortality are:-

Haemorrhage: 30%

Anaemia: 19%

Sepsis: 16%

Obstructed Labour: 10%

Abortion: 8%

Toxaemia: 8%

Poverty in the country: About a third of the country’s population lives on less than

$1.25 per day.

CURRENT STATUS AND SCHEMES FOR FINANCIAL INCLUSION

Financial inclusion or inclusive financing is the delivery of financial services at affordable costs

to sections of disadvantaged and low-income segments of society. Financial inclusion means

broadens the resource base of the financial system by developing a culture of savings among

large segment of rural population and plays its own role in the process of economic development.

Further, by bringing low income groups within the perimeter of formal banking sector; financial

inclusion protects their financial wealth and other resources in exigent circumstances. Financial

inclusion also mitigates the exploitation of vulnerable sections by the usurious money lenders by

facilitating easy access to formal credit.

In rural areas, the Gini’s coefficient rose to 0.28 in 2011-12 from 0.26 in 2004-05 and during the

same period to an all-time high of 0.37 from 0.35 in urban areas.

According to NSSO 59th Round Survey Results

51.4% of farmer households are financially excluded from both formal/ informal sources.

Of the total farmer households, only 27% access formal sources of credit; one third of

this group also borrowed from non-formal sources.

Overall, 73% of farmer households have no access to formal sources of credit.

Across regions, financial exclusion is more acute in Central, Eastern and North-Eastern

regions. All three regions together accounted for 64% of all financially excluded farmer

households in the country. Overall indebtedness to formal sources of finance of these

three regions accounted for only 19.66%.

However, over the period of five decades, there has been overall improvement in access to

formal sources of credit by the rural households (Chart 1).

25 | P a g e

According Government of India Population Census 2011

As per census 2011, only 58.7% of households are availing banking services in the country.

However, as compared with previous census 2001, availing of banking services increased

significantly largely on account of increase in banking services in rural areas (Chart 2)

Sadhan Kumar (2011) worked out an Index on financial inclusion (IFI) based on three variables

namely penetration (number of adults having bank account), availability of banking services

(number of bank branches per 1000 population) and usage (measured as outstanding credit and

deposit). The results indicate that Kerala, Maharashtra and Karnataka has achieved high financial

inclusion (IFI >0.5), while Tamil Nadu, Punjab, A.P, H.P, Sikkim, and Haryana identified as a

group of medium financial inclusion (0.3)

World Bank ‘Financial Access Survey’ Results

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From the table 1 given below, it would be observed that in our country, financial exclusion

measured in terms of bank branch density, ATM density, bank credit to GDP and bank deposits

to GDP is quite low as compared with most of developing countries in the world.

S.No. Country No. of

bank

branches

No. of

ATMs

No. of

bank

branches

No. of

ATMs

Bank

Deposits

Bank

Credits

Per 1000 km Per 0.1 million As % of GDP

1. India 30.43 25.43 10.64 8.9 68.43 51.75

2. China 1428.98 2975.05 23.81 49.56

Source: World Bank ‘Financial Access Survey’- 2011

Present schemes for financial inclusion includes:

Pradhan MantriSurakshaBimaYojana:

Considered to be the cheapest accidental death cum disability insurance policy with an annual

premium of just Rs. 12, it has received a massive positive response from most of the Indians.

Although the insurance cover is small which is Rs. 2, 00, 000 for accidental death and Rs. 1, 00,

000 for partial disability but considering the fact that nearly 80% of the country’s population do

not have any insurance, the scheme has evoked a very good response as it will further increase

the insurance penetration to the remotest locations of India. Till now, due to high annual

premium by private insurance companies not everyone was able to buy policy. But this has

become possible with SurakshaBima.

Pradhan MantriJeevanJyotiBimaYojana (PMJJBY):

Similar to PMSBY, PMJJBY is also the cheapest life insurance policy with an annual premium

of Rs. 330 and moreover it does not require medical examination. The cover offered under the

yojana is Rs. 2, 00, 000 and the termination of policy takes place after the policy holder reaches

the age of 55 years.

Objective of both PMJJBY and PMSBY is to provide financial security to the family of policy

holder in an event of his/her death.

Atal Pension Yojana:

This pension scheme was launched with a sole purpose of providing pension to the workers from

unorganized sector after the retirement to meet their daily needs. Contribution can be done

monthly/quarterly/every 6 month and equal amount will be contributed by the government of

India with an option to prematurely exit from the scheme before the age of 60 years. Pension

amount receivable would be in the range of Rs. 1,000-Rs.5, 000.

Jeevan Suraksha Bandhan Yojana:

This scheme is a Raksha Bandhan gift and is launched with an objective to drive PMSBY and

PMJJBY. Through this yojana, brothers can gift social security schemes to their sisters by

purchasing gift card worth Rs. 351 and deposit scheme worth Rs. 201 which will be used for

27 | P a g e

making the premium payment for Suraksha Bima Yojana and Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana. Apart

from this, term deposit scheme worth Rs. 5001 can also be taken which will serve two purposes

– premium payment for PMSBY and PMJJBY for the first year and remaining money would be

investment for term deposit for 10 years.

Pradhan Mantri Jan DhanYojana:

Opening zero balance saving account for every unbanked Indian household was the main

objective behind the launch of PMJDY. Overdraft facility of Rs. 5,000 is also available provided

the account is kept active for 6 months after opening. Some banks are also opening account to

existing customers whereas majority of them have restricted to only those with no bank account.

Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana:

With a mission to secure the financial future of the girl child, this small savings scheme SSA –

was launched under the Beti Padhao Beti Bachao initiative. For the current year i.e. 2015-2016,

the interest rate offered is 9.2%. For e.g. in this scheme if you invest Rs. 20,000 for 14 years, the

maturity amount will be Rs. 10, 67, 528 (assuming 9.2% interest). Check out table containing

investment amount and maturity amount for SSA.

Parents or local guardians can open account in the name of the girl child at post offices or

various banks designated by Reserve Bank of India. Moreover the interest income and

investments are eligible for tax deduction under section 80C of Indian income tax act, 1961 and

the scheme matures once the girl child reaches the age of 21 years. For opening the account,

initial deposit of Rs. 1,000 has to be made. And next year onwards, deposit can be made for

amount ranging from Rs. 100 to Rs. 1, 50, 000. Premature withdrawal is possible only when girl

gets married before the maturity. The interest rate would be declared by the government every

year. When the scheme was launched in the year 2014-2015, the interest offered was 9.1%.

CONCLUSION

On the one hand Indian Government’s continuous focus is on ensuring macro-economic stability

and prudent fiscal management, boosting on domestic demand, continuing with the pace of

economic reforms and policy initiatives to change the lives of our people for the better. On the

other hand it focus on enhancing expenditure in priority areas of - farm and rural sector, social

sector, infrastructure sector, employment generation and welfare of poor. In the budget 2016-17

government have allocated a sum of Rs. 87,765 crore for rural sector, Rs. 38,500 crore for

MGNREGS and Rs. 1,51,581 crore for social sector including education and health care. The

different segment of population got benefitted by these in last decades, which have led to

significant changes. Some of these changes are distinctly visible – especially in the economic

sphere with the adoption of new technologies, diversified production, and sophisticated

management. Changes have also taken place in the social sphere – with affirmative action for

disadvantaged communities and with women enjoying by and large more freedoms than ever

before. Still about 40 per cent of Indian population is below poverty line. The goal of poverty

alleviation programme should aim merely increasing the income level of individual, household

or group but mainstreaming marginalized in the development process of the country. The country

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cannot claim economic growth when a section of the people is marginalized to the periphery of

the society. The rapid economic growth process should accelerate the access to services like

education and health services for all, especially the marginalized citizens. The link between

ignorance and poverty and ill health and poverty are well-established. Poverty therefore is a

complex phenomenon of many dimensions not merely the economic dimension. Poverty

alleviation programmes should address the issue of poverty from broader social and economic

perspectives.

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