Freebies or Rights: What is India's approach to welfare spending?

This is Infocus The Hindus current affairs podcast Hello, and welcome to Infocus. I'm G Sampath in today's episode we will be looking at social policy What is social policy? We are familiar with debates around India's economic policy We know what it is we are talking about when we talk about India's foreign policy We have a new education policy But we rarely hear discussions about India's social policy We have social policy is a term that is used to describe a set of guidelines or a set of principles or Actions taken by a government to improve people's well-being and reduce inequality Typically this takes the form. It takes the form of welfare measures investments in health Investments in education investments to take care of people's social security and protection Okay, but traditionally and historically speaking India is consistently underspent on health on education It should be a matter of common sense that a country which has a healthy and Educated population will be more productive Compared to one whose population is undernourished or semi-literate and yet We have had a history of consistently Understanding on social measures on social policy related measures. Why is this so? Why is it that we tend to dismiss government expenditure on health and education and social security measures as a Raimd or freebies or Or just a burden on the extra cup Is there something we need to rethink here now? There's a new book called freebies or rights Understanding social policy in India. It's by Rithika Keera who's professor of economics at IIT Delhi She joins us today to unpack the nature and trajectory of India's social policy Ethika, welcome to in focus. Thank you. Can you start by giving as an overview of India's social policy architecture? What it is. Yeah, so Maybe I should focus on what's in the book because that's the stuff that I understand I Think the reason one reason for writing the book was that Without quite realizing it we seem to have put in place a Relatively well-integrated welfare architecture in the country. I'm saying relatively well-integrated because it has this kind of kid cradle-to-grave Architecture or you know, which takes a life cycle approach So that from the time of conception till the person is old There is some sort of government support for different stages of a person's life So this book is trying to help people recognize that what seems like disparate Welfare programs here and there actually in some ways they do fit in together So just just to walk you through the structure It starts with maternity entitlements which are for pregnant and lactating mothers then We have the integrator child development services scheme which is for children up to six then they go to school So for children who are six to 14 years. There is the promise through the right to education act of Eight years of basic schooling, but there's also through the National Food Security Act the promise of school meals And then for the family as a whole we have the public distribution system Which through the National Food Security Act only provides free grain But in a few handful of states the PDS the public distribution system is also supplementing People's diets through subsidized dial and oil Edible oil Then there's the National Rural Employment Guarantee or rather should say was the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act Which was something like the right to work for rural areas and then for old age Especially, but there is we have social security pensions which fall under the National Social Assistance program Which in fact has not just old age pensions for the elderly but also pensions On-contributory pensions for single women with doors etc and also persons with disabilities So as you can see There is a possibility of seeing it in this well-integrated manner So a lot of the programs that I've outlined whether it's maternity benefits or child services school meals and ICDS Or PDS or pensions They're both for rural and urban areas except this National Rural Employment Guarantee Act Which is only for the right to work for rural residents and This is focusing on people who are in the informal sector So it's really social policy for the informal sector with the special focus on rural areas Thank you for that detailed explanation and that is this really nice What should I say a visual which you've put in the book with a cradle to grave India's emerging welfare architecture Which sort of lays out all of these schemes some of which are entitlements some of which are like more like something Which the government is giving without having any legal Equipment to do so there is consistently a View that prevails in India today that this kind of social spending is a burden. It's okay to spend on Infrastructure, investing in education, health and pensions, etc. Is a burden It's it's it's not really Investment in people so to speak. So there is this bias in people's minds Even including economists which hold that investing in Stuff in things in infrastructure is great, but Spending on people is not an investment. Right. So what are your thoughts on this? Yeah, so just very quickly since you brought up that For graphic or figure whatever as it happens. You know the the kind of Framework that I just laid out it maps quite neatly into the directive principles of state policy Which are part of the Indian constitution and somehow for many decades there were more or less forgotten But in so the time span for this book is about the past 20 years So 2004 to 24 kind of a thing and in the first 10 years there were three or four laws that were passed Which actually kind of was a step towards Realizing the promises of the directive principles. So the National Food Security Act it covers of 2013 covers Maternity benefits for the for women in the informal sector Child services through ICDS school meals and the public distribution system Then there was in 2009 or 10 the right to education act, which is about basic schooling eight years And then there was the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which was the right to work Does the direct principles of state policy do they say these things and afterwards? Yes. Yes. Yes. So there is the article articles 39 41 47 They talk about raising the level of nutrition of the population improving doing things for public health Right to work and so on And in fact the one big gap as far as the legislative framework is concerned is as for health care We don't have any universal health care act so far in the country And then the other one is these national social security non-contributory pensions for people Which is just running as a government scheme and I would say also suffering from neglect especially from the union government So so yeah, I think when people just say know that we're just randomly You know making policies here and there actually they map at least these ones They map quite neatly into what was in the directive principles not to go to your actual question Sorry, so I think those who think of this as a burden and it's true that you know that in some ways I mean we people who work on these issues we always feel that these policies are not getting discussed or enough Airtime in public debates, but I think there is quite a lot of discussion about Narega There was a lot of discussion about Narega or the PDS etc And I think that what tends to happen is that it tends to give the impression that a lot of money is being poured into these programs They're not cheap obviously, but if you look at but Past 20 years these programs which I'm just talking about they have never been more than 2% of GDP Yeah, and it's been not so not only are the levels low, but the levels have also been stagnating over the past 20 years And normally one would expect that as an economy Prosper and grows at a healthy rate or whatever 5 6 7 8% that you would be able to set aside more for these redistributive programs But in the Indian case, that's not really happened in any significant way The second thing is that fiscal concerns are very important right money doesn't grow in the air, but I think my Pee is that when we talk about fiscal discipline in India in the Indian context It's always in the context of reducing expenditures, and it's always reducing these kinds of redistributed Expenses of the state we never talk about the revenue side right so fiscal deficit is actually a function of both things. If we were able to raise more revenues, then we would be able to run a more robust welfare program, have more redistributive programs, etc. But the problem is that in the Indian context, you can't talk about raising revenues because basically, there's a lot of resistance to this, to any kind of redistributive taxes. So if you think about income tax, I would say, why has the base remained so small in spite of all these years of robust growth, right? Maybe 10% of the population has bankers, but not more than 5% or 6% pay income tax in the country. But it's not just about income tax, it's also property tax wealth tax. We come to that in a bit, there are two kinds of arguments which can be made for giving these so-called freebies to people, subsidized education, subsidized health, pensions, etc. One is the moral or ethical argument, which you're mapped from the directive principles of the Constitution. So that is there. Is there an economic argument as well? Yes. Because it is on the economic argument that it is consistently getting attacked, saying, you are violating fiscal discipline, you are putting a burden on the extracurricular, you should, instead of having the government focus on spending to accelerate growth, you are spending on redistribution and therefore losing out on growth. But then, I mean, as I said in my introduction, shouldn't this be a matter of common sense that for you to have a resilient economy and a sustained growth, your human capital has to be of high quality in terms of education and health. So, doesn't this make it a matter of common sense, a matter of economic common sense that you have to invest in your people? Yes. So, why doesn't that happen? You see, even in your socialist face, we did not do that despite being a socialist economy or a mixed economy. And after their reforms, economic reforms in 1991, our revenues did go up, right? What you said, that happened. But still, our expenditure on health as a person with a GDP didn't even touch 2%. So, how do we understand this? Right. So, I think there is a big blind spot. You're exactly right. And in economics, there is a lot of literature on the returns to education. And you know how every additional year of schooling can increase people's incomes by so many, in a disproportionate kind of way. So, you're absolutely right that we should see any investment in Indian people as an investment in the same way that we view investment in roads and flyovers and things like that. Why hasn't that happened? I think it's partly got to, I mean, I think the inequality in Indian society is so high now that it's almost like, you know, one side doesn't see how the other side is living. But if you go back in time and you know, when arguments were being made for a more robust welfare state in other countries, these kinds of interventions were seen as one way of remedying the kind of deficit that a large section of the population has. So, it's a way of fixing a problem rather than a burden. They said that if you invest in people and then you will also be, they will also be able to participate in the growth of the country and the kinds of opportunities that come with GDP growth. So, if we think of India as a labor abandonment economy, then people are our biggest trend. Now, we have to decide whether we want an illiterate and unhealthy workforce, or whether we want a well-educated and a healthy workforce. And I think somehow that very simple message hasn't dropped in the policy circles enough and there is a resistance to increasing spending on those things. Right. You know, if you look at, you're given interesting figures comparing India and America and other brics countries and so on. And one of the data points which really struck me, you know, we are the mother of democracy as we claim, like to claim. And America is the mother of capitalism or the father of capitalism however you want to put it. So, India is considered a late-comer in a sense to the market economy, right. But from the beginning, let's say if you go back to 1947 onwards, US government expenditure as a percentage of GDP has been, was 44.8% and it's been consistently in that range. Whereas for India, even in its socialist phase, the big government, so to speak, never had more than 31.1% of the GDP as its expenditure. So, our government expenditure taken as a whole has been much less, whether we have been a market economy or a socialist economy compared to the arch capitalist economy which is the US. We have been around the 31% range and they've been 44% plus. So, is there a case for India's government to get bigger today, especially in terms of how much it spends on welfare and social policy? Yeah. So, you're right. I mean, I think for me to bring in a little bit of what is happening in the other countries and this book is also to bust this kind of, you know, impression that we have, that India state is too big compared to some of these very well developed countries. So, in America, if you look at enrollment of primary school age children and you will find that less than 10% of children in that age group are enrolled in private schools. In India, the comparable figure, all India average is about 45 to 48%. And this is a very serious problem, right? Because you're, we are pushing children into private schooling and the quality is very variable and obviously not everyone can afford it. So, the rich ones can go to good private schools and some of the private schools that are not so good are perhaps even worse than government schools which have a very serious quality of education kind of problem. So, in these sectors for sure, there is an argument for the Indian state to be much bigger than it currently is. Now, one would have to do a more detailed analysis of where is government money going and, you know, what is where the flag needs to be trimmed. But because the people who are affected by welfare policies don't get enough of a hearing in Indian democracy, those are the sectors which tend to get squeezed which is health and education as you pointed out. But also, these are the programs of redistribution like Narega or PDAs or ICDAs, etc. Right. You know, we spoke about government schools and how we have a very like a shrinking proportion going to government schools. The private sector is sort of taking the bulk. Now, one of the key conceptual weapons that is trotted out to reduce a government spending and bring in the private sector is efficiency, you know. So, I want to ask you, I mean policy makers, they use efficiency as this kind of a battering ram to sort of push through all kinds of technology driven solutions, you know. For instance, if you look at education itself, now according to the new, I mean education policy, national education policy, government schools are being merged or built into clusters and a lot of government schools are getting shut in the name of efficiency because you can't have a school running for six students or seven students. And therefore, efficiency has become the priority over access. So, when you merge schools, certain villages of certain families who don't have a school nearby will have to go much further and they may not be incentivized to go, send their children there. So, this efficiency trumping over access is one instance of the primary objective here which is to get people into school, get children to schools getting undermined. So, is efficiency the ultimate argument to which there is no answer when it comes to social, social welfare policies? So, again, I would say that even in the most basic economics textbooks, both are put, you know, are discussed together efficiency and equity. Right? So, if you look at Joseph Stiglitz book on public economics, Joseph Stiglitz being a Nobel Prize winner, etc., they are concerned very much about efficiency and equity together. But somehow, one side or one part of this economic vision gets much more of an airing than they are there. And I think the reasons for that are political and social, etc., like what is happening in the in society as a whole. We have not only the caste, sorry, class war, but we also have, you know, overlaid on it is the caste battle to fight. And that perhaps has a lot to do with why one gets prioritized over the other. As far as these policies are concerned, the ones that you mentioned about closure of schools, that is a word. There's also push for online teaching because it's more efficient, right? Well, I'm not sure if it's efficient in what ways it efficient. If you look at its impact on children's learning and education, I'm not sure that it would come out as efficient. You know, during the COVID lockdown for instance, schools closed pretty quickly, like in March 2020 or April perhaps. And then they remain closed for two full years in totally shocking because even the UNICEF at that time had said that schools should be the last to close and the first to reopen. In the case it was completely the opposite. They were amongst the first things to close down and they were amongst the last to reopen. And at that time, what happened is quite worrying because they switched to online classes. And of course, people like us who have access to devices and can create a learning environment even at home, the transition to online learning was very smooth. But we are about depending on what data sets you look at. This is about 20-30% maximum of the population. We did a survey at that time and we found that almost half of the children had not had any access. You know, the teachers were sending some WhatsApp messages by way of online learning. And in one case, one child was told to do some homework. The homework was given to a class one child. And the mother said this child has never been to school for even a single day. And so the teacher's response was just get the older sibling to do whatever it is and send it back. So online learning works very well for one segment and not at all for the rest. And because the ones who are making policy belong to this segment, the whole struggle of that other part gets completely invisible to policy makers or conveniently ignored even when it is made visible. So that I think this digital has this effect, right, that it makes the struggles of a very large part of the population. And not just in education, even if you think about now accessing health care to the extent it's getting access is getting digitized. It does mean that older people have more troubles and those who are in rural areas and who can't cope with these kinds of things, who have unreliable connections, etc. will be worse impacted. Whereas for us, everything will become much easier. You know, getting a vaccine slot was much easier. Is there an inverse relationship between efficiency and equity or is it just in India? No, no, I don't think it's necessarily true. There is quite a lot of literature around this, which I'm also not on top of it. But I do know that it's not necessarily the case that one comes at the cost of it. It should do with the design of how we think. Yeah, I think so. I think you can get both. But it's obviously all of these things. But no efficiency without equity. I think that should be maybe like a part of our story. Yeah, yeah. I would certainly subscribe to it. But I'm sure there are others who will object. You know, one interesting chapter you have on midday meals and undernutrition. Undernutrition in India is a major issue when nobody can deny that. And eggs in midday meals are a very easy way comparatively to address this. But there are still people who would say that there are other ways of getting protein into the diets of children. Why do we need to go to eggs? You know, is that a valid argument? Do we have, let us say, a comparative data between one state which used eggs to get that, come on, that amount of protein to into kids. And another state which followed an alternative non-agrood to get proteins to kids. And do you know which one did better or anything like that? Right. So, first of all, I think it's worth spending a little bit on eggs because right now, there's so much resistance to an introduction of eggs in so many different states. Now, I think, first of all, eggs are important because they're a source of very good source of protein. And any other form of protein will obviously be very welcome, any form of protein because protein is very important for children, especially in those stages, etc. Now, as it happens, eggs have an advantage over these other sources of protein in terms of bioavailability, etc. But also for logistical reasons, right. Now, in rural areas, in schools where there is no refrigeration, to try and reach protein through milk means you have to have refrigeration facilities, it will drive up the costs, right. So, eggs on the other hand, they have a long shelf life, they can be stored and they can be cooked in bulk very easily, you just have to boil them. If you think about other similarly priced, suppose, you know, you were in a place like Bengal and maybe fish is very cheap. But, you know, cooking fish is not as trivial as boiling eggs. So, there is a long shelf life issue. So, in terms of logistics, it's good. And also, they can be diluted like dal can, for instance. Or, you know, even if they make soya, wadi, curry, they tend to put too little, you know, you can at most put two or three or five. So, the protein that you get from five soya, bean, wadi is not going to be comparable to an egg, which is six or seven grams per this thing. And actually, I would say it's not just in the school meals, we should be talking about the introduction of eggs in Anganwadi also. Because, even at Anganwadi's, children are given supplementary nutrition in two different forms. One is cooked food at the Anganwadi for three to six year olds because they go there every day and they do some play, learning through play and all that. But, there's also the take home rations for children who are under the age of three. And, Odisha had this great experiment. You know, they started giving eggs as take home rations. In many other states, they were giving these powder things. I think these things, first of all, nutrition is an intergenerational issue, right? So, unless you make a very big concerted effort to overcome the backlog, you know, you won't be able to see it within two or three or four years. It does take time. And, I think now is a good time to do the kinds, exactly the kinds of studies that you're saying, which is to look at states which introduced eggs long ago, for instance, Tamil Nadu has had it in the mid-day meal program for very long, also in Anganwadi's, but the frequency is lower. Interestingly, it's lower in Anganwadi's. It should be higher in the Anganwadi's because that age group is more critical. It's better, I mean, to make a. Yeah, early intervention is far more important. Even that older age group needs the nutrition because many children don't get nutritious food at home, right? So, if you look at NFHS data, most children are not getting even on a weekly basis in most states, not everywhere, but obviously. So, eggs have this advantage and they're also very cost efficient. Now, whether the government is resisting, because they don't want to put even that six or eight rupees per child per day into this program, or whether they're actually resisting on religious and cultural grounds, that's not very evident. But, I think there is hope, because, you know, in a state like a Karnataka, for instance, for many years, there was resistance to the introduction of eggs, but in the past three or four years, they've made these breakthroughs and they've been able to introduce it even in the school mail program. So, hopefully, I mean, it seems sad that, you know, you have to. I have been involved in these debates for over 10 years trying to make a case for eggs, and, you know, we have not. So, when they don't get eggs, what do they get in its place? So, yeah. So, in some states, they have tried to give milk. So, I think in Gujarat, you get tetrapack, or, you know, that kind of milk, but that will drive up the cost a lot. In other states, they've tried to do soya bean wadi's. Sometimes they say, "We'll give bananas," but bananas are not that great from the point of view of nutrition. -Bananas, how can bananas be a substitute for protein for eggs? -Sometimes in Rajasthan, I've seen guava. So, there is a menu which tries to build in these things, but the fact is also that the budget per child per day is too small in most states to be able to provide it on a regular basis. So, then the people who are on the ground and charged with implementing this, they have to find ways of making it work, right? So, if there is full attendance, then there isn't enough dal to go around. So, according to the nutrition norms that are specified, so then they add a bit of water, ditto with milk, or with eggs, you know, the states which are giving eggs, if they are not able to get enough eggs according to the budget and attendance, then they say, "Okay, today we'll give you half an egg." So, they're trying to make do one of the things that- -But eggs are the most cost efficient source of protein. -Amongst, amongst the most cost efficient, yeah, and also just in terms of nutrition. -So, if a state is not giving eggs and is giving something else in its place as a source of protein, then they would be, what should I say, voluntarily spending more to give less protein? -Yeah, but the thing is they say- -They say- -This is religious ground or cultural ground. -Yes. -If you're for cultural or religious reasons, if you're not giving eggs and you're giving something else in its place, you are going to spend more to give less protein to children, is that right? -Yes, yes, to- yes, and the way, in fact, even the budget for the others is not enough to- this thing, so you end up getting diluted, etc. So, it's really a shooting ourselves in the food kind of situation, because if you protect children from under-nutrition in the early years, zero to three being the most important, then you will have to spend less later on in life, to protect them in that, you know, you're in the womb and then the first 1000 days of a child's life up to three years are very critical and there's a lot of literature on why that is. age group is very important and by not, by resisting exit this way, we are just, it's really sad, isn't it? Yeah. You're bringing up a generation which is antinuristic for no reason at all except you're. Yeah. I mean, not that one-nigger day can make up for all the backlog, but at least it gives you a fair chance. I mean, we have to do much more, but just even the first step is such a big struggle. I mean, literally, I think the first article I wrote on eggs must be 2015 and we're in, yeah, so it's- Yeah. Yeah. There is this little paradox which we should talk about in your book, we live in the age of big data, you know. You can't leave your house without leaving, you know, your data footprints all over. You become a data point yourself wherever you go. And in this era of big data, India, you're saying, is in danger of becoming a data black hole? What do you mean? So, what's happened is that, I mean, there are different sources of data, right? So one set is, say, the census of India, the administrative data that the government collects when it implements these programs. And then there are these surveys that are conducted by the National Sample Survey Organization. Now, as you know, the census has been delayed beyond what was necessary, right? The census should have happened in 2021, we are in 2026. And- First time since independent census has been delayed. That's right. Yeah. So, in the independent India, this is- and the only other time was during the war, the second world war that it was disrupted. So, and the census data also impacts the secondary surveys that the government's NSSO conducts, the National Sample Survey Organization conducts. And then there's the administrative data. All of these sources are becoming first, you know, in different ways. What do you mean by administrative data? So, by administrative data, so for instance, when the government was implementing National Rural Employment Guarantee at Narega, they have a very nice MIS management information system, which was publicly available. And down to the household level, you could get information on which members of the family worked and how many days they worked over these years. Now, recently, while I was writing this book, I found that from the MIS, all data pertaining to Narega before 2014 was no longer available. And so, actually, we brought this up with the government and some of it has been reinstated since then, but not all of it, of course. This administrative data is one, census data is not available, what what else? Yeah. And the third one, there was a big lag between, you know, the National Family Health Survey, which gives us information on nutrition for 10 years from 2011 till 20 to 23. We didn't have any information on consumption, which is the kind of data we use for looking at poverty rates, et cetera. Now, it's opened up a little bit. But even things like the census, you know, a lot of these things, they seem like, you know, what does this ordinary person, how does it matter to them with the census data is available or not. But actually, they do have real-life implications of one example, which we like to give all the time is how the coverage of the National Food Security Act is linked to census data. So, according to the Food Security Act, 50% of urban population, 75% of the rural population is supposed to be covered under the public distribution system. Now, right now, the coverage is based on the 2011 census, meanwhile, Indian population is increased. And according to our estimate, now, more than 10 crore people are being denied a ration card because this census, the new census data is not available. So, it has very real-life implications as well as not just an academic exercise. You know, there's all this big data, big data, it's become a buzz word, actually, there are not that many interesting uses, policy uses that we have seen of big data. And there's also a kind of naive expectation, you know, in one of the economic surveys, they said, oh, you know, if you have real-time information on which school building is in bad condition, then the district collector can take immediate action. And the fact is that the person who's supposed to be taking this action, quite often, they know that there is a problem. They just don't have the way with all to fix the problem in some cases. And in other cases, they don't feel accountable enough to do it. So, it's not a problem that we don't know where the problem is, and therefore, we are not able to act. It's much more that when we know that there is a problem, either we don't have the will or we don't have the money to be able to take this action. Speaking of this real-time data, when I found your scooter guy in Gujarati, it's quite funny. Can you talk about that incident? Yeah, so this illustrates this point that, you know, the data can be useful if it is followed up with action. Okay, so in Gujarat, I was based at IAM, I was reading the Gujarati papers, and so in the Gujarati, the Vibhya Bhaskar at that time, there was a story of a man, he's gonna be funny. So, his scooter got stolen, and then he filed an FIR for it. And I think some months had passed if not more than that, and in the intervening months after the theft and after filing the FIR, he still kept getting chalans, traffic chalans for jumping a light or something like that. So, what was happening is that the cameras at these traffic lights were picking up his number plate, being violating traffic rules, but they were not able to put those two things together. And so, the thief, or whoever had bought the scooter from the thief, was merely using this stolen scooter, and the original owner was getting, so you can have all this CCTV and real-time chalan capturing, etc. But you may not be able to actually use it to go to your bank. So, you were getting a like real-time data coming to the entire whatever law and order system, but they were not able to fulfill the basic, a policy which is to get the store and scooter back to the guy. And in fact, you know, if we talk about it in a more serious way, I mean this anecdote is funny. But if you talk about the use of, say, in the Angan Badees now, which is in this book also, so at Angan Badees now, because there is some suspicion that the Angan Badee workers were siphoning off rations that went for children, they have been told to take a photograph of children eating every day at the Angan Badee, okay. Now this is a very easy thing to fudge for a, for an Angan Badee worker who is interested in cheating, it's a very easy thing to fudge. The app only needs a JPEG file. You can upload a JPEG file of my phone and it would accept it because nobody is actually checking the JPEG file because who's going to check this, right? There's going to be thousands and thousands of, and this is precisely what happened in NREJ, they were doing this national mobile monitoring system where they said we want you to take a photograph of the workers at the work site. And in August last year or September last year, the government withdrew this circular because they said that even that was being fudged. And in fact, someone we know in Jharkhand, he downloaded the photographs that attendance photographs that had been taken at work sites and you found the same photograph being uploaded for 20 different work sites, you know. So, this kind of technocratic real-time data is not necessarily going to solve these problems, what you need is something different. This new form of, what is called new welfareism, you know, this women's entry cash transfers, everybody has been talking about it all, across the political spectrum, parties are doing it. In your book, you, I mean, I'm quoting you, you speak of the political neglect of women and children, especially in the context of ICDS, allocations and so on. But people would point to the more than two lakh crores annually, which has been doled out to women in India every year, you know, through these cash transfers schemes, you know, like actually Bandar and so on. So, doesn't this suggest the fact that every political party is doing it, doesn't it suggest that women are actually politically potent and not really some kind of a group or a constancy that can be neglected? Is it, if that is true, is it that they don't have the political side way to demand allocations for ICDS and schemes like that, but are they, are they just happy to go with these handouts? How do you understand that they need allocations, but the kind of allocations they're getting is going in the form of cash transfers, which is not really transformative. Right. So, this is actually a difficult kind of issue, right? Let's see, on the one hand, we have a situation where women don't have work opportunities, they don't, they're not economically independent and it's absolutely essential to put money in their hands. Okay. Now, if that is the first ask or what the first task or the important task for us to do, Then I would say that for those women who are already working. give them fair wages, in many spheres there is no equal pay for equal work, the women are getting a lower wage than men are getting. And like I've said in this book also, so many frontline workers of the welfare state, they are so badly underpaid. Are Anganwadi workers even considered as workers? So in many states they are recognized as workers but in many other states they are still treated as contractual but Anganwadi helpers are much more fragile. See the workers are one and then there is the helper and workers helpers in many states are given an honor area rather than a salary. So those people are cooks and helpers. In some states they are getting 2-3,000 rupees a month and the justification from the state government is that this is only a 4-hour job. But if you are going to spend 4 hours doing something, who is going to hire you for the rest of the 4 hours? First of all, many of those cooks and helpers will say it's more than 4 hours but suppose it is 4 hours, then you are not going to be able to get work for the rest of the day. So we have a situation of a very underpaid workforce and then of course there are many women, we know that the female labor force at the workforce participation rate is very low in India. And for that to put money in women's hands is to create work opportunities for which Narega was a great instrument. More than 50% of the employment through Narega went to women workers. But even there they are very polly paid. So that's a very interesting data point. When you are saying effectively that Narega was half of Narega was a women centric cash transfer scheme in a way. Yes, absolutely. And throughout its history, 20-year history Narega, it was in some states it's up to 90% workers were women. Now in Narega, the problem was that the wages were also too low. So I would say that this is such a fantastic way to do exactly this. Also because if you do it through work, whether Narega or other work that women are able to get, you also have a self-selection kind of mechanism. Those who have better opportunities, they will select out of the program and only those who don't have anything will come here. So I feel that if we want to empower women or at least ensure that they are economically independent, then creating work opportunities for them through public employment programs. And you know, there are some states that have also experimented with urban employment guarantee programs. So it's not as if you can only do it in rural areas. In fact in Oudepur, one of my students who did her PhD field work, where she studied that Narega and Veerosgarh Huchna in the city. And a lot of the women were first-time workers. They had not been allowed earlier to step out of the house and come and work. So there were many first-time workers. If you look at other states like Madhya Pradesh for instance, it talks about economic empowerment or economic independence of women. But they also say it is to improve health and nutrition outcomes. Now again, I would say that in this welfare framework that is laid out here, if you want to do cash for health and nutrition, I would say make the maternity entitlements robust. Yeah, because right now women are only getting 6,000 rupees at best through the maternity benefits scheme as maternity entitlements. So that is definitely a constituency and a cash transfer that needs much more support from the government. If you want to make nutrition improvements, then I would say put eggs on the plate of children in Angan Varis, right? I'm also saying this because nutrition education in India is quite poor. We still have very, you know, the first six months are supposed to be exclusive breastfeeding. And that statistic hasn't improved terribly in the past 10 years. So we may give cash to women, but that need not always automatically translate into better nutrition because they don't necessarily have the information they need. So my view is that there is this welfare architecture. There are some states that have made it work. And therefore our efforts should be to make it work in the states where it's lagging behind and everywhere there is a neglect in terms of budgets. And then on the work site, I would say the, you know, improve ensuring better wages implementation of the minimum wages act, for instance, and also providing work opportunities is one way of good way of putting cash in women's I think you've given really solid concrete suggestions for women centric cash transfers. One is give better wages and expand Narega. Automatically women are going to get cash in their hands. For all the reasons you've said for these various women centric cash transfers, secondly, you've said increase the maternity entitlements. That's automatically going to put cash in the hands of women. And thirdly, pay fair wages to Anganwadi helpers and Anganwadi workers. You're automatically going to put cash in the hands of women. I think if you're doing these three things, even there wouldn't be any requirement to sort of specifically, you know, set aside huge budgets and new schemes which are targeted towards women. You're already going to be achieving your nutritional goals, your women empowerment goals through these existing schemes which have have a proven track record of delivering. There's another anomaly that these cash transfers to women have created in a state like Jharkhand for instance. I should know the numbers from the top of my head, but I've forgotten. But a midday meal cook or a helper, they get 2000 odd rupees. And women who are entitled to the cash transfer through that Maya Yogyna, which is the cash transfer to women Yogyna, are now getting 2 and a half thousand rupees. Now the cooks and helpers are not entitled, I think, to this scheme. So they are working and they're getting less and they see other women who are not working and are getting more. So that's the fair wage argument that at least pay them fairly because they're actually doing useful meaningful work for society. There was something similar that happened in Karnataka where you know, Danganwadi helper, she was struck off because she was later deemed true being eligible because she was a government employee, but actually her wages were either comparable or lower than the Karnataka scheme was giving to them. And the reason why they prefer cash transfer is because it's a visible right there in your hand benefit, whereas the nutritional benefits that will flow from say a healthy mother who's getting enough money cash support through the Pradhan Mantri Matruvandana Yogyna as maternity benefits or who's getting good care at the Anganwadi and good nutrition at the Anganwadi, those benefits are not tangible in quite the same way. It's a long term invisible kind of benefits, so unless that understanding improves. Right even it's a long debate, I think we'll continue it on another day. Now coming to the challenges to the social welfare regime in India, you know, you write about a number of things including this data, Black could be already discussed, but one of the key concerns that you're flagged is that the money which has been allotted for various kinds of social spending is funneled. Back to cooperates funneled back to fill in through capitalists as you refer to them. Now my question is how does this matter if corporates are brought into deliver welfare, if they are the ones who are best equipped to deliver this for the government, any way government is associated with corruption, bribery and inefficiencies and so on. So are you saying in a way that all rights based entitlements should be delivered solely and directly by the government only and corporates should be kept out? So no, I'll give you specific examples which have raised these flags for me, but before that, see if you look at health care across the world, there are different models, there is the National Health Service in UK where it is direct government provisioning of health services, most doctors are on the government payroll etc. But there are also models like Germany or Japan where, so Germany for instance, the health, it is a universal health insurance, it is provided, health insurance is provided by private companies, but by law those private companies are not allowed to make a profit, they are not for profit health insurance, private company. Now that concept in India, even now I feel like let me go and check again, it's just such an alien idea for us that the government can say that health insurance cannot make a profit. In places like Japan also there is very heavy government regulation of the prices that private provisioners of health care, private doctors can charge, there is a thick book apparently where every price is negotiated. Between these private bodies and the government, and so it's like a single payer, no, so then the government can. In India we have private equity coming into health. Yeah, so there can be different models, but the bottom line I think is that the government has to be quite heavily involved whether it is through regulation. or through direct provisioning, that's something that we can decide what works for us. Now, but in economics, there is this understanding, you know, that these for public goods, what we call public goods, like health and education, definitely are public goods, that there is an argument because if you leave it to the market, you will neither get efficiency, nor will you get equity. And therefore, the governments are charged with these functions in many developed countries, but also in developed countries. Now going back to this kind of funneling back, I can give two or three examples, you know, in 2008, it's a very old story, but it's quite a, it's still quite something to be vigilant about. So, what happened at that time was many MPs started getting the, actually, the education ministry, HRD ministry started getting letters from a lot of members of parliament saying, mid-day meal back because ABCDE, and why don't you replace it with fortified biscuits for X, Y, Z reasons. So, there was this kind of, you know, in the bureaucrats in the ministry started wondering, like, how come the similar kind of thing is coming at us? And what turned out is that there's something called a, was something called a biscuit manufacturer's association that had written to all the MPs with this two page briefing note, and some of them were just, you know, passing it on as a matter of routine, and some were very happily endorsing and forcefully endorsing this proposal. Now, obviously, there's a very clear conflict of interest, you know, at that time, if I remember right, the mid-day meal budget was 8,000 crores, and the biscuit industry was much less than that. So, they were thinking this is a, you know, sitting duck for us. We, we get an inroad in a foot in a, if you're taking the door into this market, then, so it was dressed up as public interest that, you know, fortified biscuits can do this or that or the other, and mid-day meals cooked, hot cooked meals on site are not good for this or that reason. But in fact, ultimately, it turned out that it was a lobby of a certain kind that was pushing for it, and, you know, you cannot compare fortified biscuits as a source of nutrition and food with hot cooked meals. You know, you cannot eat biscuits every day for lunch, for instance. I hope, perhaps you think you can, but I'm not sure whether the sugar content is going to be good for our children. So, this is just one example, but there have been several such attempts. We got fortified rice later on. Yes. You speak about the double standards in maternity benefits. What do you mean, whether I talk about class-based double standards here? So, it makes me very upset. This, you know, there was an infographic on Twitter where they had maternity benefits across five or six countries, and the point of that infographic was to shame America. Because in America, there is no federal law for, so it's zero. In India, right now, it's 26 weeks after the 2017 amendment of the Maternity Benefits Act. But that Maternity Benefits Act is only benefiting women who are in the informal employment, so people like me. This is just like 15-20% of the workforce, right? The rest of it is in the unorganized informal sector, and for them, there was nothing until 2013 until the Food Security Act made maternity benefits universal. So, that's one part of the story, that the ones who needed the most get it in 2013, whereas the maternity benefits law actually goes back to 1961. It was amended in 2017, and the number of weeks was increased. But worse than that, the principle behind maternity benefits is supposed to be wage compensation, so that, you know, if I take 26 weeks off, I get 26 weeks full salary, right? That's the principle that applies for me. But for women in the unorganized sector, it's only 6,000 rupees flat rate, yeah? So, whereas I would get something like six-lag rupees, the women who are most vulnerable, it's not even will give you minimum wage for six months, it's just a flat rate of. So, and the thing is that when the Act was amended in 2017, by enlarge the reception was landmark, history, etc., etc., widely welcome. There were some concerns about, you know, this will mean that even few of women will get employment because private employers want to give such leave to women. But when the, so in 2013, the National Food Security Act was passed and brought this, made this a universal entitlement, but the actual scheme to operationalize it only came in 2017. And when it was announced, some people even said, "Oh, you know, now you're giving money to women, so they'll have more children." But this kind of argument is never made for people like me who are going to get much more, right? So, this kind of. So, when this amendment came in, nobody said that. No, I don't recall that being said. So, when it is for me, for people like me, people like us, we're very happy to recognize it as a right. But when it comes to women who. In the unorganized sector? Yeah, in the unorganized sector, who are far more disadvantaged, immediately there's this kind of free-be-doll handout, kind of narrative that emerges. So, 6,000 rupees is what they get in that little. It's very lucky. So, if you translate it into the number of weeks, it falls far short of the 26 weeks, which is their entire. Which a woman should be entitled to by law, 10 weeks or less. Less, less, because if you say that, you know, it's 500 rupees a day, then it would come to like two weeks. So, you have two different systems, one, 26 weeks, and one is like, 10 weeks or something like that. Yeah, it's a bit like that, we've thus used to India's. Two India's, and we compare ourselves to the U.S. and say, we are better, because we did it in 1961. That we were not thumping us, it was somebody on Twitter. Right, you know, one major trend in social policy that you flagged as a cause for concern is technocracy. We see it everywhere, you know, in every domain these days. Education, we know it very well. Health also. So, you write that technocracy undermines both accountability and public interest. Can you unpack that for us? Yeah, so I think I'm very influenced or, you know, the way Adhar has affected these social welfare programs, these social policies, I think it's really, it's become like a monkey on the back or rather elephant on the back of these welfare programs. Not elephant. Yeah, that's really, you know, like these programs are, you know, weighing down by the demands of this kind of technocratic intervention, because people have to make sure that the spelling, their spelling is exactly the same across databases. And by that, I just don't mean R-W-T-I-K-A versus R-I-T-I-K-A, but also if there's an extra space between my name and my surname, that will be flagged and, you know, the linking will not go through. So, so because of these very stringent and inflexible demands of these technocratic systems, which are coming in the name of efficiency, what is actually happening is that now, now, you know, children are finding it difficult to stay in school because they've also brought it through the back door for school children, it's called A-PA-R-I-D, but it also is riding on the same Adhar kind of infrastructure. So, so that's one part of the story where, you know, a lot of these public programs, the implementation is suffering. Now, as it is, it was difficult to implement them, they're demanding to implement, and then on top of that, you've put this weight on the lower level bureaucracy to do all this work. So, that instead of actually doing the work they're supposed to do, which is play with children, feed them, you know, help them grow, etc., etc., those same Manganwadi workers are now grappling with their smartphones and connectivity issues and facial recognition and all of that. So, so, so, you're not doing anything about making them accountable by making them use these apps, yeah, and on the other hand, children are paying the price for somebody's techno fetish. Is this a problem which is specific to India or does techno-crassy driven solutions, so to speak, for delivering welfare, produce similar outcomes in other countries as well. Is it just we who are implementing it so badly, or is it the property of techno-cratic approach itself? Right. So, I have to confess that I know India best, and in fact, I'm very much a frog in the well, but we did do a bit of work, I did do a bit of work in France, and there also we found that you know, we were studying the use of digital tools in healthcare access. And even there, we find that people are struggling except there because it's a much more equal society. There's much more information flow and recognition of these challenges, but in the Indian case, I always often feel that, you know, we want technology for technologies sake, not because it's a tool that's enabling input, it can be a tool, technology can be a tool, has been a tool in many of these programs and I have talked about them in the book, whether it is the PDFs or NRJ, but this technocratic kind of mindset, you know, that it has to be this way and not that way, that is what has been quite detrimental and other is one of the main examples of this, you know, harmful uses of digital tools. This book, the Titles, Freemies or Rites, now there is a rough parallel which I sort of infer from your book, in the context of this whole discourse about MyBub culture, you know, people generally tend to dismiss these entitlements, rights-based legislations as a symptom of MyBub culture, where you basically expect the government to sort of give you all these goodies and you are treated, MyBub culture refers to generally some co-form of paternalism, you are dependent on the government, the way children are dependent on their parent. So, do you see a parallel here, so to speak, between the UPA era, where you have all these legislations, right to food security act, right to information, right to education, all of them coming in as entitlements which are legally enforceable versus the various schemes which are rolled out in the India era, where it is more like we are giving you these things, you know, and you should be happy that we are giving you these things. So, is there like a clear demarcation in terms of MyBub kind of an attitude, so which one is justifiably MyBub era and which one is justifiably rights-based era or are they both the same? No, so I would say that when you legislate rights, especially on things like health, education, social protection, then you are doing the opposite of MyBub circle, because MyBub circle has this thing like, you know, it's up to me, I decide whether you get it or not, when you get it, how much you get it. Whereas, if it is a legislation, then it is an entitlement, it is a right and I can learn what my rights are and I can learn to demand them and realize them. So, in that sense, the first 10 years of the period covered by this book are very much in the rights-based realm and also it is a case of India arriving at this juncture a bit late, I would say, then other countries and those other countries would be developed countries, but also think places like South Africa, if you look at the post-apathide constitution or Brazil in the 1980s, when they got rid of the dictatorship. So, but we are still struggling to, you know, if you are not comparable with those countries still in terms of health, expenditure, education, expenditure. What has happened later in the next 10 years is, first of all, the emphasis on those rights based programs has been lost, like the ones that existed have suffered in terms of financial support and in the case of one, they try to remove Narika, although they say they are replacing it with a better bigger and better act, which is the new VB Gramga act. So, it is the right to work still enforceable legally under the new act as well, right? Well, that is what they are claiming, but whether we still do not know, right? We are just in the second or third month of that act being rolled out. So, we will have to see what happens. The first signs, early signs have not been good. And then the programs that this government has emphasized are things like Ujuela Yojna, PM Kisan, Swachbhara Tabyan, sorry not in the Ravas, PMavas. So, a lot of these programs actually did exist even before, right? So, PMavas was in the Ravas, Swachbhara was normal Bharat. This water gel-jeevan mission used to be Rajeev Gandhi, rural drinking water mission, etc. But with these new ones, there is a kind of different approach, right? Once you get the toilet, then you are done. It is a one-off thing. Once you get the Paka house or Paka room under PMavas, then you move on. So, it is a kind of saturation approach. So, it is a one-off benefit and also because it is not guaranteed by any, there is no guaranteed funding because it is not a legislation, what you might also find is that the support for it, you know, you have to announce something in every budget and then you let people forget and then you make another announcement. And I think there is a bit of that pattern. In the funding for even the programs that this government has brought. But none of the new programs or even the repurposed old programs of this India era are sort of butters by underlying legislation. No, I don't think. So, none of them can be claimed as a right. No, I don't think that is the case. Housing it isn't, water isn't, Ujwala isn't. So, yeah. So, then this is basically the Maibab era? Yes, I would definitely, yeah, because it's up to them, you know, what we give you this year and how much we decide to give you next year for the same scheme. And if you got it in the first year, you are lucky and if you got left out then just do that. But in any case, because it has this saturation approach, you know, like how many toilets are they? Cubicles are they going to this? It's not like every year we are giving you the same thing like Karina, ICDS. Yeah, ICDS is every day, schools are every day, Narega used to be a yearly entitlement, PDS is monthly entitlements, pregnancy, the maternity benefits is for every pregnancy or at least it was supposed to be even there, there's a dichotomy between what was in the law and what is in the suit. Whereas once a toilet has been built or house has been built, that allocation does not have to come again next year. No, not to that person. No, they will move on to the ones who are left out. Right. That's all I have for you, Ritika, in this episode of Infocus. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for listening.