Critical analysis of welfare schemes

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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

13 | P a g e
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,

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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

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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.

24 | P a g e
 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

26 | P a g e
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

28 | P a g e
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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