New welfarism of India’s Right

Context: The recently released data by the National Family Health Survey highlights India's move away from the approach of tradition redistribution towards a distinctive "New Welfarism".

Defining New Welfarism:

• It is a distinctive approach to redistribution and inclusion: As opposed to traditional redistribution, which aims to deliver intangible tangibles (public health and education), it focuses on tangibles.
• It includes subsidised public provision of essential goods and services, bank accounts, cooking gas, toilets, electricity, housing, and more recently water and also cash. (helps garners political support)
• It is also ambivalent about strengthening the safety net which past Indian governments have pursued with mixed success.

Achievements of New Welfarism

• Women's financial inclusion and empowerment:
  • By 2019, 72 % of all women had bank or savings accounts.
  • In rural Bihar, women accounts jumped from 6.6 % in 2005 to 25 % in 2015 to almost 50 % in 2019.
• Increased access to essential services:  98 % of all households had access to electricity, nearly 70% to improved sanitation, and 60 % to clean cooking fuel.
  • Sanitation: Post-2015, 3.4 % of households were gaining access to better sanitation. (1.5% before).
  • Cleaner cooking fuels: 6 % increase every year since 2015.
  • Rural electricity: Post-2015, 3.4 % of households were getting power every (2% before).

Problems with New Welfarism

• Low Performance in sanitation: The India-wide average of access to clean sanitation is still a little under 70 %. In Bihar number, it is only 49%.
• State level variations: suggest that the centre can neither take full credit nor bear all the blame for outcomes.
• Retrogression in Child Stunting: Steady decline between 2005 and 2015 had shown a reversal tendency after 2015. The overall stunting rates flattened, and urban rates increased.
  • Child nutrition being an intangible is difficult to achieve or measure, and parents are unaware of it; it also needs patience to deliver.

Conclusion: Governments need both substantive and political visions to provide a combination of tangible and intangible services to deliver broad based prosperity base.