"There can't be a better time to re-think the traditional program-centric welfare models, and leverage technology to minimise exclusions. It is essential to know what the constraints & the opportunities are to enhance government-citizen engagement without additional fiscal burden."
 

The social protection challenges:

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• The combined Central & State Government budget for social protection in the current FY is Rs 18 Lac Crore i.e. Rs 5,500 per family (with a total of 30 Cr. Families) per month, considering 90% of families need social protection.

  • Only ₹35,399.40 Crore could be spent from ₹78,521.24 Crore cess collected for construction worker welfare (The Hindu - Feb 3, 2022). Such spending requires support from systems .

  • The government’s operational expense on education till class 12th is Rs 42,000 per student per year.

  • The Agriculture ministry has over 100 farmer welfare schemes.

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• There is a high error of exclusion in social protection. How much money is each family getting and how is that helping them to come out of the social protection net?

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• The Government is under immense pressure to do more with less.

  • The economic divide is increasing.

  • Citizens are demanding greater accountability due to increased awareness.

  • The number of people who need help is increasing.

    • Such pressures increase during periods of stress induced by pandemics, wars, or other natural or manmade disasters.

 

The purpose of social protection is to provide adequate levels of health, housing, education, and food support to families marginalized due to socio-economic and geopolitical reasons. The families need to be encouraged to come out of social protection net and move to a higher level of health, housing, education, and food support through livelihood intentions.

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The social registry is being considered as a mechanism to address the above issues and is being implemented in several states. Some common myths about social registries are as follows:

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Myth 1 - There are just 30-40 data points required for eligibility checks for all welfare schemes.

Reality - There are over 300 data points to check the eligibility. We have arrived to this number by automating hundreds of welfare schemes in each state.

 

Myth 2 - Citizen data required for eligibility checks doesn't usually change.

Reality - Gender can be changed, DoB can be corrected, and caste certificate can be wrongly issued. 150+ data points have validity for less than a day only.

 

Myth 3 - A department will trust data captured by another welfare scheme that is not the true owner/source of data.

Reality - Department will trust caste or income data from the revenue department only or disability from the health department only.

 

Myth 4 - The definition of Family is static.

Reality - The families shall be derived based on dynamic relationships in run time for the intended purpose.

 

It needs to be discussed as to what should we do to make social protection family-centric (currently program centric) and progressive (for families and the national economy).

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• The governance structure for social protection – Should it be managed by several ministries or by one ministry/ department for social protection and other ministries/departments are to focus on just livelihood opportunities in their respective areas.

• What is an optimal mechanism for delivering social protection through DBT – In kind or in cash?

• What should government do to make sure that benefits reach the right person at right time in the appropriate quantity till the last person standing? How do we achieve 'antyodaya'?

• Ownership and use of family data for purposes other than social protection – Issues of privacy/event-driven consent mechanism.

• During the survey-based approach or aggregation of data from the line department, who should verify the data if citizens request for change in data?