Dear All
Happy to update on the details of my recent publication made on the above title as:
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ABSTRACT
It is the reality that the welfare
measures though give temporary relief with limited outcomes and impact but
lacks in its sustainability and thus affects the targeted groups both socially
and economically leading poor quality of life. Social benefits are current
transfers received by households intended to provide for the needs that arise
from certain events or circumstances resulting vulnerabilities, marginalization,
or isolation leading to poor quality of life. In view of the processes of
liberalization, privatization and globalization and shift from people oriented
development to business oriented development, the benefits of development were
not distributed for the people over the Nation or Region. But on the other side, mostly confined to
selected groups and thus widen the gap between the rich and poor and urban and
poor. Continuation of such mismatched development and distribution of its
benefits to the people in general and particularly poor and other marginalized
groups puts majority of the population to struggle for basic needs for a
minimum standard of living. This makes them more dependent on others to get
supports. In such circumstances, Government along with Private or Corporate
extends social benefits to the targeted groups based on various parameters or
situations. Most of such measures gives relief from the situation which are
short term with relief centric. On the other side, the ineffective and
inefficient service delivery systems dominated with top down approaches will
not support the targeted groups to be independent at home and community. The need
of the hour is to accept all such challenges of poverty and resulted welfare
centric social benefits and look for matching measures. On the other side,
several opportunities exist to work for the empowerment of the people and
Nation with improved quality of life and sustainability. The initiatives taken
up are need based and simple, flexible, replicable, and sustainable matching to
the dynamics of the given environment.
The welfare measures though give temporary
relief with limited outcomes but lacks in its sustainability and thus affect the
targeted groups both socially and economically, leading poor quality of life.
Social
Benefits
Social benefits are current transfers
received by households intended to provide for the needs that arise from
certain events or circumstances, like, poverty, sickness, disability, education,
accidents, unemployment, retirement, housing, education, hazards, disasters, environmental
emergencies, festivals, celebrations, or family & community circumstance and
its consequences resulting for loss or poor access which makes them more vulnerable,
marginalization, or isolation leading to poor quality of life (QOL). Majority
of such social benefits are populistic (political based), relief centric,
onetime, short term, etc., having nil or limited outputs, outcomes, and impact to
make the people independent, grow, develop, and / or sustain for better living.
This may be one of the key reasons that the initiatives taken up for poverty
alleviation have not resulted matching or expected outputs, outcomes, and impact
in the lives of the poor or other targeted groups. On the other side, the processes
of liberalization, privatization, and globalization (LPG) and shift of development
from people oriented to business or profit oriented (having minimum concern
over the people and environment) though resulted for development but its benefits
were not reached the people living over the Region or Nation. Such mismatched
development exploits the resources on one side and on the other side could not
meet the minimum needs of the larger population.
Empowerment for Independent Living
To overcome the limitation or challenges of social benefits (Fig. 2), the need of the hour is to shift from charity or welfare model to development or empowerment or right based model. In this direction, several initiatives have been taken up in the form of missions by the Nation and some of them includes: Clean India, Green India, Digital India, Skill India, MakeIn India, Entrepreneurs India, Accessible India Campaign, Jal Shakti Abhiyan etc., with the aim of future India, shine India, or empowered India. The outputs, outcomes, and impact of all such missions is expected to work for the people’s development as an empowerment for independent living with improved sustainability and quality of life (QOL). In this direction, the key Ministry for social benefits has been renamed as Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment and controlling & monitoring body as National Institution of Transforming India (NITI AAYOG). Such shift has created several opportunities for the people, organization, communities and other stakeholders with the aim of making people and communities more empowered and independent. The Global Goals (Sustainable Development Goals- SDGs) aims for the empowerment of the People and Nation with sustainable development.
Conclusions
The study made on the impact of Social Benefits
is the needy and the conclusions emerged include:
ü
The
welfare measures though give temporary relief with limited outcomes but lacks
in its sustainability and thus affect the targeted groups both socially and
economically leading poor quality of life.
ü
Social
benefits are current transfers received by households intended to provide for
the needs that arise from certain events or circumstances.
ü
The
processes of liberalization, privatization and globalization and shift from
people oriented development to business oriented development, limits the
distribution of the benefits of development to the people over the Nation or Region.
ü
On
the other side, mostly confined to selected groups (investors, &
developers) and thus widened the gap between the rich & poor and urban
& poor.
ü
Continuation
of such mismatched development and distribution of its benefits to the people
in general and particularly poor and other marginalized groups puts majority of
the population to struggle for basic needs.
ü
Government
along with Private or Corporate extends social benefits to the targeted groups
based on various parameters or situations.
ü
Most
of such measures gives relief from the situation with shortterm as a relief
centric.
ü
The
ineffective and inefficient service delivery systems dominated with top down
approaches will not support the targeted groups to be independent at home and community.
ü
People
centric services & supports with matching service delivery systems will
lead for better participation, accountability, responsibility, &
transparency making them available, accessible and affordable to all.
ü
Continuation
of such unhealthy and mismatched benefits leads for poor quality of life and
force people and communities more vulnerable, marginalized, and isolated from
the mainstreamed development.
ü
The
need of the hour is to accept all such challenges of poverty and resulted
welfare centric social benefits and look for matching measures as an
empowerment for solution with improved quality of life and sustainability.
ü
Opportunities
are expected to create significant impact in the lives of people and
communities in the form of empowerment (both economically and socially) which
further results for their inclusion with sustainable development and improved
quality of life or wellbeing.
ü
Nation
has taken up with several missions like Clean India, Green India, Digital India,
Skill India, MakeIn India, Entrepreneurs India, Accessible India Campaign, and Jal
Shakti Abhiyan with the model of people oriented development.
ü
The
outputs, outcomes, and impact of all such missions is expected to work for the
people’s development as an empowerment for independent living with improved
sustainability and quality of life.
ü
The
partnership of Government, Private and CSOs is expected to work tuning to the
model of design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation with scop for social
auditing.
ü
This
GPCP model will work with better participation, accountability, responsibility,
and transparency of all players and thus make the social benefits available,
accessible, and affordable to all in general and particularly to the targeted
groups.
ü
The
initiatives takenup are need based and flexible to the needs and dynamics of
the people and communities without boundaries.
ü
The
resulted outputs, outcomes and impact are significant with better
sustainability and wellbeing of all with better connectivity and harmony.
ü
Continuation
of such initiatives with the model of GPCP will make Social Benefits more
effective and efficient and to support the People and Nation to be independent with
better sustainability.
Recommendations
In view of the Nation’s mission of achieving
sustainable development as per the Global Goals, there is a need to continue the
study and the recommendations made include:
ü
To
create Awareness cum Advocacy on the scope, and utility of Social Benefits planned
from time to time to all in general and particularly the targeted groups and communities.
ü
To
conduct matching Trainings, Workshops, and Seminars at all levels for better dissemination,
sharing, monitoring, and evaluation including social auditing.
ü
To
encourage students and researchers to take up the courses and study to understand
the ground realities and need of developing matching Social Benefits including
its service delivery, utilization, monitoring, evaluation and social auditing.
ü
To
strengthen digital data base connected with Social Benefits and its access for
utilization with space for monitoring and evaluation matching to the dynamics
of the people at receiving end.
ü
To
strengthen various opportunities with flexibility for empowering people and communities
to be independent with better sustainability and quality.
ü To encourage CSOs to work with Government and Private / Corporate on the model of partnership known as GPCP for matching outputs, outcomes, and impact.
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Looking forward
