In India, if you are poor, you are also expected to prove it many times, with different documents, in different offices, often for different people who decide whether you are worth helping. One is wrong, and you are closed out. This is the real story behind India’s welfare architecture. Although our welfare state is spent in FY 2023-24 and is strong on paper with 5.4 lakh crores, and even generous, it remains a maze for the economically disadvantaged population, protected, demand, or protected by officers protected by officers.
By 2023, the eligible people worth 4.5 crore were excluded from the public distribution system due to old population data. In Bihar, more than 12 lakh elderly applicants waited for years for pension. More than 14 crore migrant workers have fought to reach rights like ration cards or Ayushman India nationwide, due to the dominated rules (India Migration Now). Only 2% of transgender individuals surveyed all the three major documents: Aadhaar, Ration Card, and Caste/Income Certificate (NCTP, 2022). Therefore, if you are a Dalit widow without a ration card, a migrant, or a young trans person without a permanent address, has already written to you out of its script.
Welfare as a exclusion game
“Targeted Kalyan” often serves as an exclusion engine. Although it is to ensure that the benefits are most worthy, in fact, it forces people to pursue endless paperwork to face only the denying without the right connection. This system is very marginalized, which claims to help reward people with time, literacy and access. It promotes corruption and casteism by putting strength in the hands of the gatekeepers.
Here where universal policies come, not as a utopian ideal, but as a practical fix. Universal welfare schemes work because they are simple, automatic and free from discretion. There is no need to prove difficulty when every child gets hot food in a government school or every low -income family receive subsidized food grains. The profit comes without prejudice. Tamil Nadu’s mid-day meal scheme and PD of Chhattisgarh are prominent examples.
Delhi’s free power scheme increased this principle, with 100% subsidy up to 200 units and 50% subsidy up to 400 units. It benefited in over 36 lakh houses by 2024. Within access automatic and defined boundaries, it minimized exclusion, leakage and corruption. Free bus ride scheme for women in Delhi was launched in 2019, after the same argument. No income or caste check, just a pink ticket. This improved education, work and access to public places for millions of women.
But it is changing. The BJP government plans to change the pink ticket with a lifetime, which requires evidence of Delhi Residency, except migrant workers, students and unspecified. This connects bureaucracy obstacles and believes that everyone has digital access. Similarly, Ayushman Bharata, despite his goals, often puts those people in need due to strict eligibility criteria, who disqualify families or earn minor income to own basic property – as a result, Slum residents, rickshaw collar and informal workers were to protect many groups.
Not a handout for the rich
Delhi’s rich will never queue for free bus ride, worry about their electricity bill, or send their children to a government school. And that’s right. Let’s clarify: Universal welfare is not a handout for the rich, it is a lifeline for the rest. In a country with caste, class, and systemic neglect for centuries, well -designed universal policies are how we begin to level the ground.
Universal plans do not mean treating everyone; They mean no one is left behind. They replace the current system that forces one to constantly prove their poverty, not through monitoring but cuts into corruption by removing bureaucracy obstacles.
Therefore, before arguing on the “fiscal risks” of universal schemes in air -conditioned rooms, policy makers should go in a ration shop or urban Rajasthan in a pension queue in rural Bihar and ask women how many times they filled, and how often they needed a briba.
Hidden cost of targeting
Largeting in social security is often promoted as a cost-saving measure, but may be expensive and disabled for both beneficiaries and governments. According to the World Bank in India, the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) suffers from high inclusion and exclusion errors. Similarly, social pension programs include complex manual verification procedures that not only increase administrative costs, but also exclude many qualified elderly persons. We deprived the innumerable stories of the elderly of pension, as their biometrics did not match. Research has shown that targeted welfare has repeatedly marginalized, and how, at the same time, governments spend 10–15% of their budget on targeting of beneficiaries.
The targeting system only imposes hidden costs on both governments during the yield of marginal fiscal savings, as time, effort, and access obstacles, in terms of administration and disabilities, and beneficiaries. The World Bank in 2020 and the recent evaluation by J-PAL in 2020 support simple universal or classified models as more cost-effective and equitable options.
Why better data should go by hand
Identification of individuals or families required by government welfare is a frequent challenge, especially in India, where more than 90% of the workforces are in informal economy, unstable, low-income and any formal contract or social security (periodic labor force survey, 2022-23). Many people rely on informal jobs or social networks for support.
This challenge is complicated by chronic welfare figures, such as the 2011 SECC, which leaves significant intervals in identifying poverty. A 2024 report by the Indian Statistical Institute found that more than 34% of poor families were excluded from major welfare schemes like PMAY and NFSA for targeting errors (ISI, 2024). This makes it difficult to target accurate poverty, resulting in millions of people fall from the cracks.
Missing political will
The trust of an Indian citizen in welfare distribution and the state is obliged to decline without honest rule. As Babasaheb Ambedkar said, “Although a good constitution can happen, if those who are implementing it are not good, then it will prove to be bad.” This highlights the central argument of this article: even the best welfare policies fail without will to work.
Politics and politics are inseparable. Policy decisions are influenced by ideological inclination, public sentiment, electoral pressure and special interests. Despite the competing agenda, the target remains equity-based growth, which requires validity not only from above but also from the trust of the ruled people.
India does not require more layers of targeting or technology-powered filters; It requires political will to trust its people. A change in compassion from the conditional, from discretion to dignity. Because poverty does not come with a certificate, and dignity should not be required.
(Eshna Gupta is a social worker and public policy businessman. Reena Gupta is an economist, advocate, secretary of the Aam Aadmi Party, former advisor to the Government of Delhi and Delhi.)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
