Speaking at a function in Allahabad in 2013, Rahul Gandhi stirred the hornet’s nest by dismissing poverty as just “a state of mind.” Measuring his words carefully has never been a strong suit of the Gandhi scion. Unfortunately, in the last 10 years, nothing much has changed as Rahul continues to be irresponsible with his wanton public utterances.
While putting a stay on his conviction recently, even the Supreme Court of India said that Gandhi’s public utterances are in bad taste. Coming back to the issue of poverty, back in 2013, hailing the role of self-help groups (SHGs), the then Congress vice president, Rahul Gandhi said that SHGs provide the poor with “self-confidence to overcome poverty.” True, SHGs have played a stellar role under the aegis of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dynamic leadership in the last nine years, but Rahul’s insensitive statement 10 years back, about self-confidence being the only solution to poverty, smacked of immaturity and worse.
“Poverty is just a state of mind. It does not mean the scarcity of food, money or material things. If one possesses self-confidence, then one can overcome poverty,” he had said, in a stark display of insensitivity and callousness. Well, Rahul Gandhi is absolutely wrong. Poverty is indeed the scarcity of food, money, material things and so much more. Most importantly, poverty is eventually about the lack of access to basic amenities and the lack of access to “hope” — the hope for a better life.
And without an iota of doubt, it is precisely this rebuilding of hope and igniting the spark of an aspirational India that wants the best, that has been the hallmark of PM Modi’s last nine years in power. While Rahul mocked the poor, his father, Rajiv Gandhi allowed middlemen a free run at the expense of the poor and his grandmother Indira Gandhi used the Garibi Hatao slogan for self-gratification.
In sharp contrast, PM Modi has dedicated himself to the cause of the poor and the underprivileged. In this column, an attempt has been made to elaborate upon all the schemes associated with PM Modi’s Garib Kalyan initiatives and how they are rapidly transforming India.
“Our government has so far transferred Rs 28 lakh crore via DBT under different schemes. If Rajiv Gandhi’s remark had remained true even today, then 85% of it, i.e. Rs 24 lakh crore would have been looted. But today, it is also reaching the poor,” said PM Modi in February 2023 at a business summit, while elaborating on reimagining welfare delivery. The delivery of bank accounts, loans, housing, property rights, toilets, electricity, and clean cooking fuel have all been given a whole new dimension under the Modi government, with no room for middlemen. “Our focus is to empower the poor to enable them to contribute to the rapid growth of the country with their full potential,” he had further added, at the event in New Delhi, earlier this year.
Speaking of welfare economics, the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) was launched by the Modi government in December 2016, on the lines of the Income Declaration Scheme (IDS). As part of the Taxation Laws (Second Amendment) Act, 2016, the scheme provided an opportunity to declare unaccounted wealth and black money in a confidential manner and avoid prosecution, but only after paying a fine of 50 per cent on the undisclosed income. An additional 25 per cent of the undisclosed income was allowed to be invested in the scheme, which could be refunded after four years, without any interest. Not declaring undisclosed income under the PMGKY attracted a fine of 77.25 per cent if the income was shown in tax returns. In case the income was not shown in tax returns, it attracted a further 10 per cent penalty, followed by prosecution.
The initial objective of PMGKY was to ensure tax evaders declared unaccounted money to avoid penalty and criminal prosecution. Through this scheme, the Modi government intended to use the deposited black money for the welfare of the poor people. The scheme was valid from December 2016 to March 2017. In 2020, the Modi government extended the scheme to include relief packages during the pandemic. The aim was to support the livelihood of the poor during the Covid lockdowns. Garib Kalyan is not a mere platitude but an abiding work ethic for PM Modi.
PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PM-GKAY) was launched in April 2020 for the provision of food grains through the PDS mechanism. Cash transfers of Rs 500 each to women who had Jan Dhan accounts and medical insurance to health workers including doctors, nurses, ASHA workers, paramedics and sanitation workers was also a part of PMGKY.
PM-GKAY, a brainchild of Prime Minister Modi, had approved a new integrated food security scheme for providing free food grains to Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) & Primary Household (PHH) beneficiaries, as per entitlement under the National Food Security Act (NFSA). Implementation of the new scheme benefitted more than 80 crore people every single month, starting from April 2020. PM-GKAY has strengthened the provisions of NFSA in terms of accessibility, affordability and availability of foodgrains to the poor. In all, the scheme’s outlay swelled to Rs 3.91 lakh crore since launch by the end of December 2022. The free ration scheme witnessed multiple extensions since April 2020. Under the PM-GKAY scheme, the beneficiaries covered under the NFSA get five kilograms of food grains (wheat or rice) per person per month. This quantity is over and above the quantity of food grains that they are entitled to, under the AAY. Under AAY, beneficiaries are already provided with 35 kilograms per family.
Thanks to PM-GKAY, many individuals received double their current entitlement absolutely free of cost. To ensure the availability of protein, 1 kg of pulses is also provided to families (as per regional preferences) under PM-GKAY, which is the largest food security program worldwide and one of a kind.
For the effective and uniform implementation of NFSA, PM-GKAY subsumed the two subsidy schemes of the Department of Food & Public Distribution, namely, (a) food subsidy to FCI (b) food subsidy for decentralised procurement dealing with procurement, allocation and delivery of free foodgrains to the states under NFSA. The Modi government is spending more than Rs 2 lakh crore in 2023 alone as food subsidy under NFSA, PM-GKAY and other welfare schemes to remove the financial burden of the poor and large chunks of the middle class who were adversely impacted by Covid.
Insurance cover of Rs 50 lakh per health worker fighting Covid was provided under PM-GKAY. Safai karamcharis, ward boys, nurses, ASHA workers, paramedics, technicians, doctors and specialists and other health workers were covered by a special insurance scheme. Any health professional, who while treating Covid patients, if met with some accident, was compensated with an amount of Rs 50 lakh under the scheme. All government health centres, wellness centres and hospitals of the Centre, as well as states, were covered under this scheme, with approximately 22 lakh health workers provided with insurance coverage to fight the pandemic in its worst phase, all through 2020-21.
Over 20.4 crore women Jan Dhan account holders got an ex-gratia of Rs 500 per month during the pandemic. An increase in MNREGA wage to Rs 202 a day from Rs 182 to benefit 13.62 crore families was undertaken under PM Garib Kalyan Yojana. An ex-gratia of Rs 1000 to over 3 crore senior citizens, poor widows and the disabled was given during the pandemic. The Modi government front-loaded Rs 2000 to be paid to farmers during Covid, under the existing PM Kisan Yojana, to benefit over 11 crore farmers. Modi government had also given orders to state governments to use building and construction workers’ welfare funds to provide relief to construction workers. There are around 3.5 crore registered workers in this fund. Also, the state governments were asked to utilise the funds available under the district mineral fund (DMF) for supplementing and augmenting facilities of medical testing, screening and other requirements in connection with preventing the spread of the pandemic, as well as treating the patients affected.
Under PMGKY, gas cylinders, free of cost, were provided to over 8 crore poor families. Wage-earners earning below Rs 15,000 per month in businesses having less than 100 workers were at risk of losing their employment. Hence, the Modi government decided to pay 24 per cent of their monthly wages into their PF accounts for an extended period of time, during Covid, to prevent disruption in their employment.
Women, through 63 lakh self-help groups (SHGs) that support over 6.85 crore households, got multiple benefits under PM Garib Kalyan Yojana. The limit of collateral-free lending was increased from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakh. Employees’ provident fund regulations were amended to include pandemic as the reason to allow non-refundable advance to employees, to the extent of 75 per cent of the amount or three months of the wages, whichever was lower, from their accounts. Families of four crore workers registered under EPF took benefits of this window.
PM Garib Kalyan scheme has not been limited to the extraordinary measures taken by the Modi government during the pandemic. Even beyond that, welfarism has always been the cornerstone of what PM Modi has done in the last 9 years. For instance, as of March 2023, a total of 23.19 crore Ayushman cards have been created against the verified beneficiaries. Over 4.44 crore hospital admissions worth Rs 53,350.20 crore have been authorised through a network of 25,969 empanelled healthcare providers, including 11,700 private hospitals. Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Jan Aushadhi Pariyojana (PMBJP), with over 9400 such outlets in 651 districts across the country, selling over 1800 medicines and 285 surgical items at cheap prices, are also transforming the healthcare landscape rapidly. Don’t forget, under the Congress, Jan Aushadhi kendras remained a complete non-starter, despite starting way back in 2008. This clearly shows that merely launching a scheme is not enough. The ability and intent to execute that scheme is critical for its success and that is where Modi’s visionary leadership stands out.
Similarly, when the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) was launched on August 15, 2019, out of 19.27 crore households, only 3.23 crore (17 per cent) households in India had tap water connections. But almost four years hence, as of May 2023, the number of households with tap water connections has risen to over 12 crore. In August 2022, Goa, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu became the first ‘Har Ghar Jal’ certified regions with 100 per cent tap-water access. As of January 2023, Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab, Puducherry and Telangana have also achieved 100 per cent tap-water access, thanks to the Modi government. Himachal Pradesh and Bihar have also achieved almost 100 per cent tap water penetration, in a vindication of how PM Modi’s Garib Kalyan scheme does not discriminate between BJP-governed and non-BJP-ruled states.
Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN), a Central scheme, aims at providing financial assistance to all cultivable land-holding farmer families across the country, subject to certain exclusion criteria. Under the scheme, an amount of Rs 6000 is transferred annually in three equal installments of Rs 2000 directly into the Aadhaar seeded bank accounts of the farmers. A farmer-centric digital infrastructure has ensured the benefits of the scheme reach all the farmers across the country without any involvement of the middlemen, maintaining absolute transparency in registering and verifying beneficiaries. The Modi government has disbursed over Rs 2.60 lakhs crore to more than 11 crore farmers, with the 14th installment done in July 2023.
Speaking of Garib Kalyan, the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), launched in October 2014, wherein over 11 crore toilets were built, is a testimony to how dramatic improvement in sanitation is closely linked to an equally dramatic rise in growth, equity and overall well-being of the people. Under the 2nd phase of SBM, with a focus on urban India, SBM-U 2.0 was launched in October 2021. It envisions to make all cities garbage-free and ensure grey and black water management in all cities other than those covered under Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT). AMRUT was launched on June 25, 2015, in selected 500 cities and towns across the country. AMRUT has aimed at making all urban local bodies ODF+ and those with a population of less than 1 lakh as ODF++, thereby achieving the vision of safe sanitation in urban areas. SBM-U 2.0 lays focus on source segregation of solid waste, utilising the principles of 3R’s (reduce, reuse, recycle), scientific processing of all types of municipal solid waste and remediation of legacy dumpsites for effective solid waste management. The outlay of SBM-U 2.0 is around Rs 1.41 lakh crore.
AMRUT 2.0, launched in 2021, aims to provide 100 per cent coverage of water supply to all households in over 4700 urban local bodies by providing over 2.68 crore tap connections and 100 per cent coverage of sewerage and septage in 500 AMRUT cities, by providing over 2.64 crore sewer/septage connections, which will benefit more than 10.5 crore people in urban areas. AMRUT 2.0 has adopted the principles of circular economy, promotes conservation and rejuvenation of surface and groundwater bodies and will also promote data-led governance in water management by leveraging the latest global technologies and skills. ‘Pey Jal Survekshan’ is being conducted to promote progressive competition among cities. The outlay of AMRUT 2.0 is around Rs 2.87 lakh crore.
SBM-U and AMRUT have contributed significantly to improve the urban landscape during the last many years. The two flagship missions have augmented the capacity to deliver basic services of water supply and sanitation to the citizens. Swachhta has become a Jan Andolan today. All urban local bodies have been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF) and 70 per cent of solid waste is being scientifically processed now. AMRUT has been ensuring water security by adding 1.1 crore household water tap connections and 85 lakh sewer connections, thus benefiting more than 4 crore people, in the last few years.
Banks and financial institutions have provided Rs 23.2 lakh crore to over 40.82 crore beneficiaries under India’s Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY). The scheme was launched in April 2015 to provide easy collateral-free micro-credit to non-corporate, non-farm small and micro-entrepreneurs for income-generating activities. PMMY is the world’s largest self-employment-generating initiative. It is a classic case of Garib Kalyan meets entrepreneurship, with over 70 per cent of beneficiaries of Mudra Yojana being women. Don’t forget, even 81 per cent of beneficiaries of Stand Up India are women, with many belonging to poor and marginalised families.
The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) was launched in August 2014 with the aim to provide universal banking services through the opening of zero-balance bank account for every unbanked household, based on the guiding principles of banking the unbanked, securing the unsecured and funding the unfunded (access to credit). As of July 2023, there are 49.49 crore PMJDY accounts, with deposits of Rs 2.01 lakh crore. Over 56 per cent of beneficiaries of PMJDY are women, especially those belonging to the SC/ST communities.
Coming back to Garib Kalyan and poverty alleviation, India witnessed a significant reduction of multidimensional poverty with 13.5 crore people moving out of it between 2015-16 and 2019-21, according to a report by NITI Aayog. “India has registered a significant decline of 9.89 percentage points in the number of India’s multidimensionally poor from 24.85 per cent in 2015-16 to 14.96 per cent in 2019-21,” it said.
The national multidimensional poverty index (MPI) measures simultaneous deprivations across three equally weighted dimensions of health, education, and standard of living that are represented by 12 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) aligned indicators. The report said rural areas witnessed the fastest decline in poverty from 32.59 per cent to 19.28 per cent, while the urban areas saw a reduction in poverty from 8.65 per cent to 5.27 per cent. In the said five years, the MPI value halved from 0.117 to 0.066 and the intensity of poverty reduced from 47 per cent to 44 per cent, thereby setting India on the path of achieving SDG target 1.2 (of reducing multidimensional poverty by at least half), much ahead of the stipulated timeline of 2030. NITI Aayog said that the Modi government’s dedicated focus on improving access to sanitation, nutrition, cooking fuel, financial inclusion, drinking water, and electricity has led to significant advancements in these areas. “All 12 parameters of the MPI have shown marked improvements,” the report said. It further said that improvements in nutrition, years of schooling, sanitation, and cooking fuel played a significant role in bringing down poverty.
Nelson Mandela once said, “Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice.” Indeed, in the New India being deftly shaped by Prime Minister Modi, poverty is being replaced by dexterity and adroitness of thought, action and purpose, so that we move closer to prosperity, in more ways than one.
Sanju Verma is an Economist, National Spokesperson for BJP and Bestselling Author of “The Modi Gambit”. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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