Abstract
This contribution of the Social Change Indicators forms the eleventh part of the series. Over the last three segments, we have been focussing on the social and economic challenges arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns. The topics previously covered were on the themes of vulnerable households across social classes, poverty and migration and living conditions for social distancing. In this part, we highlight the spread of the social protection network in various states of India. Aspects such as the percentage of households having a below poverty line (BPL) card, percentage of households having a health scheme or health insurance, percentage of households having a bank or post office account, Aadhaar card saturation, percentage of families/persons covered under the targetted Public Distribution System, percentage of Aadhaar-seeded ration cards, allocation of work under MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) and the number of fair price shops per thousand population in 2021 have been examined. The required data has been collected from the Aadhaar Saturation Report provided by the Unique Identification Authority of India, the Food Grain Bulletin of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Ration Card Dashboard of the National Food Security Act, the public data portal of MGNREGA and the Fourth Round of the National Family Health Survey’s state volumes.
As India carries on its fight to contain the spread of the pandemic, it is being recognised that a strong and wider social protection network can constitute a fundamental element to tackle the imminent livelihood crisis that is facing the country. Although, various development agencies have used somewhat different definitions depending, on the objectives of ‘social protection policies’ or ‘social safety nets’, the element of state-financed measures to support vulnerable families remains the common goal. The channels of social protection network in India are generally evaluated by programmes such as the Public Distribution System (PDS), Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and several other programmes covering areas such as health, employment, housing and social security. At times, social protection in India has also been evaluated by the size of the benefits, cash transfers and other supportive policies meant for specific groups or states. For instance, the Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyaan and the Atma Nirbhar Bharat programme were initiated to boost the employment and livelihood opportunities for migrant workers returning to villages or to provide free food grains supply.
This eleventh part of the Social Change Indicators series focusses on the spread of the social protection network in various states of India. We therefore deliberate on aspects, such as the percentage of households having a below poverty line card (BPL), the percentage of households having a health scheme or health insurance, the percentage of households having a bank or post office account, Aadhaar card saturation, the percentage of families/persons covered under a targetted PDS, the percentage of Aadhaar seeded ration cards, the allocation of work under MGNREGA and the number of fair price shops per thousand population in 2021. We have collected the required data from the Aadhaar Saturation Report provided by the Unique Identification Authority of India, the Food Grain Bulletin of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, the Ration Card Dashboard of the National Food Security Act, the public data portal of MGNREGA and the Fourth Round of the National Family Health Survey’s state volumes.
Household Characteristics on Food Security, Health Coverage and Financial Inclusion
Source: NFHS-4, state volumes.
Source: UIDAI, GoI (2020).
Source: Food Grain Bulletin, GoI (2021a).
Source: Author’s calculation using Ration Card Dashboard, GoI (2021b) NFSA, GoI.
Source: Author’s calculation using MGNREGA’s public data portal, GoI (2021c).
Source: Author’s calculation using Food Grain Bulletin and projected population data.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.