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Universal Social Welfare : "EMPOWER IAS"

Universal Social Welfare : "EMPOWER IAS"

About Universal Social Welfare/Social Security

  • According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Social Security is a comprehensive approach with an aim: 
  • To prevent deprivation, 
  • To give assurance to the individual of a basic minimum income for himself and his dependents, 
  • Also, to protect the individual from any uncertainty.
  • Social welfare systems provide assistance to individuals and families through programs; such as health care, food stamps, unemployment compensation, housing assistance, etc.
  • Giving such protection to every individual in the country is called Universal Social Welfare.

 

What is Universal Social Welfare / Social Security?

  • According to the International Labour Organisation, Social security is the protection that society provides to individuals and households: 
  • To ensure access to health care and to guarantee income security; particularly in cases of old age, unemployment, sickness, invalidity, etc.
  • Giving such protection to every individual in the country is called Universal Social Welfare.

 

Schemes and Initiatives for Social Welfare in India
  • Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA): It guarantees 100 days of work a year to every rural household with an aim to enhance the livelihood security of people.
  • National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP): The program extends social assistance to poor households. It covers the aged, widows, disabled, and families where the breadwinner has passed away.
  • Integrated Child Development Services: It is a government program in India that provides food, preschool education, primary healthcare, cash transfers to families, etc. It covers children under 6 years of age and their mothers.
  • Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY): It provides insurance up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year for in-patient secondary and tertiary treatment. It coves over 100 million vulnerable families, which is about 500 million people.
 
Need of Universal Social Welfare
  • Vulnerability of masses: The pandemic has enhanced the vulnerability of masses as:
  • It has pushed an estimated 75 million people into poverty.
  • The second wave has shown even money is not enough to access health care services. It has brought even the middle and upper-class citizens to their knees.
  • Poor performance of Social Welfare schemes: The country has over 500 direct benefit transfer schemes. However, many schemes weren’t able to get desired benefits during the pandemic.
  • The schemes are fractionalised across various departments and sub-schemes. This causes problems in every stage from data collection to last-mile delivery.
  • Better results: India’s Pulse Polio Universal Immunisation Program helped it to become polio-free in 2014. This shows the country has the potential to run universal programs and achieve better results.
  • Nature of Indian workforce: More than 90% of the workforce is in the unorganized sector thereby depriving them of job security, labour rights, and post-retirement provisions.
  • Avoiding Inclusion/Exclusion errors: Universal system will encompass every individual and household in the country thereby tackling the problem of inclusion/exclusion. 
  • Improved Living Standard: Access to education, maternity benefits, disability benefits, etc. social benefits would ensure a better standard of living for the people.
 
Challenges in adopting Universal Social Welfare
  • Financial Burden: Overall public expenditure on social protection (excluding public healthcare) is only approx. 1.5% of the GDP, lower than many middle-income countries across the world. However, huge sums of money would be required to universalize social welfare.
  • One Size Approach: Universal Social Welfare may be built on a unified approach that may deliver sub-optimum results. This would happen as political economy, labor markets, demographic attributes, and risk profiles vary by location.
  • Unequal Degree of Infrastructure across the country: The idea of USW requires each and every village to have decent electricity and optic fibre network for smooth dissemination of data. 
  • Leakages and Corruption in Governance: India has slipped to 86th position in Transparency International (TI)’s Corruption Perception Index 2020. A high degree of corruption may result in a higher cost for USW and the exclusion of genuine beneficiaries. 
 
Suggestions to implement Universal Social Welfare
  • The government should map the State and Central schemes in a consolidated manner. This would avoid duplication, inclusion, and exclusion errors in delivering welfare services.
  • It already consolidates the public distribution system (PDS), the provision of gas cylinders, and wages for the MGNREGA.
  • Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) should be converted into a universal healthcare scheme i.e. available to all and at every level of healthcare.
  • It must compute the costs of delivering universal social services. Post computation, robust steps must be taken to arrange the requisite amount.
  • The country can learn from successful global models like Ireland’s Poor Law System.
  • The system was introduced in the 19th century to provide relief to the masses. It was financed by local property taxes. 
  • The system was built keeping in mind the future economic crisis and dignity of the masses.
  • It has now evolved into a four-fold apparatus. It promises social insurance, social assistance, universal schemes, and extra benefits/supplements.
  • There must be a focus on data digitization, data-driven decision-making, and collaboration across government departments. This would improve the implementation potential.
  • Universal social protection architecture should give respect to decentralization. Under this, the higher-level government should allow local governments to design, plan and deliver a core basket of benefits within a nationally defined policy framework and budget.

 

 
Need of Universal Social Welfare:
  • Vulnerability of masses: The pandemic has enhanced the vulnerability of masses as:
  • It has pushed an estimated 75 million people into poverty.
  • The second wave has shown even money is not enough to access health care services. It has brought even the middle and upper-class citizens to their knees.
  • The schemes are fractionalized across various departments and sub-schemes. This causes problems on every stage of the scheme from data collection to last-mile delivery.
  • Better results: India’s Pulse Polio Universal Immunisation Programme helped it to become polio-free in 2014. This shows the country has the potential to run universal programs and achieve better results.
  • Avoiding Inclusion/Exclusion errors: Universal system will encompass every individual and household in the country thereby tackling the problem of inclusion/exclusion.
  • This would allow anyone who is in need of foodgrains to access these schemes especially the migrant populations.
  • Improved Living Standard: Access to education, maternity benefits, disability benefits, etc. social benefits would ensure a better standard of living for the people.