Performance of welfare schemes that are implemented for vulnerable sections is not so effective due to…

Question

Performance of welfare schemes that are implemented for vulnerable sections is not so effective due to absence of their awareness and active involvement at all stages of policy process. — Discuss.

Ghissu Editorial · Accepted Answer

Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections underperform largely because beneficiaries are unaware and excluded from design, delivery and monitoring, though targeting, funding and design failures also matter. A 2024 CAG audit found Bihar's construction workers' board spent only 5 to 34% of its funds on welfare in 2017-22.

**Introduction**

A 2024 CAG audit found Bihar's construction workers' welfare board spent only 5 to 34% of its funds on welfare in 2017-22 while over three lakh workers missed medical aid. Schemes falter when the vulnerable neither know nor shape them, though awareness is not the only cause.

**Awareness and Participation Gaps Across the Policy Cycle**

SKETCH: flow-cycle | Participatory Policy Cycle
- Gram Sabha needs
- Co-designed scheme
- Self-identification
- Informed access
- Social audit
- Redesign

1. **Top-down design**: PESA, 1996, mandates gram sabha consultation in Scheduled Areas, yet several states framed its rules only decades later.
2. **Low awareness at access**: The CAG (2025) found only about half of 1.44 crore registered construction workers in Uttar Pradesh had renewed membership by March 2022.
3. **Participation works**: MKSS jan sunwais in Rajasthan fed into the RTI Act, 2005, and Andhra Pradesh's SSAAT (2009) made villagers MGNREGA auditors.

**Other Reasons Schemes Underperform**

1. **Targeting errors**: Old SECC 2011 lists and Aadhaar failures exclude the eligible, as the 2017 hunger death of Santoshi Kumari in Jharkhand showed.
2. **Funds and design**: Bihar's board left ₹246 crore uncredited, and the NSAP old-age pension has stayed at ₹200 a month since 2007.

**Way Forward**

1. **Outreach and planning**: Use SHG networks like Kudumbashree and let gram sabhas set priorities through the People's Plan Campaign.
2. **Social audit by law**: Extend Meghalaya's 2017 social audit law nationwide, with offline options when authentication fails.

**Conclusion**

Awareness and participation turn entitlements into outcomes, but only alongside sound design, timely funds and accurate targeting. Co-ownership by the vulnerable would move welfare towards empowerment and Antyodaya.

Performance of welfare schemes that are implemented for vulnerable sections is not so effective due to absence of their awareness and active involvement at all stages of policy process. — Discuss.

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