Date: 16/09/2022

Relevance: GS-2: Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States and the performance of these schemes.

Key Phrases: Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), Government of Tamil Nadu, collaborative survey, Depression, old-age pension, National Social Assistance Programme, near-universal coverage, Exclusion errors, Quest to avoid inclusion errors, Self-declared eligibility

Why in News?

• Life expectancy in India has more than doubled since Independence — from around 32 years in the late 1940s to 70 years or so today.
• The share of the elderly (persons aged 60 years and above) in India’s population, close to 9% in 2011, is growing fast and may reach 18% by 2036 according to the National Commission on Population.
• If India is to ensure a decent quality of life for the elderly in the near future, planning and providing for it must begin today.

Depression:

• A collaborative survey of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and the Government of Tamil Nadu is particularly showing evidence of depression.
• Among persons aged 60 and above, 30% to 50% (depending on gender and age group) had symptoms that make them likely to be depressed.
• The proportion of depression symptoms is much higher for women than men and rises sharply with age. In most cases, depression remains undiagnosed and untreated.
• As one might expect, depression is strongly correlated with poverty and poor health, but also with loneliness.
• Among the elderly living alone, in the Tamil Nadu sample, 74% had symptoms that would classify them as likely to be mildly depressed or worse on the short-form Geriatric Depression Scale.
• A large majority of elderly persons living alone are women, mainly widows.

Pensions help:

• The hardships of old age are not related to poverty alone, but some cash often helps.
• Cash can certainly help to cope with many health issues, and sometimes avoid loneliness as well.
• The first step towards a dignified life for the elderly is to protect them from destitution and all the deprivations that may come with it.
• That is why old-age pensions are a vital part of social security systems around the world.

National Social Assistance Programme:

• India has important schemes of non-contributory pensions for the elderly, widowed women, and disabled persons under the National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP), administered by the Ministry of Rural Development.
• The eligibility for NSAP is restricted to “below poverty line” (BPL) families, based on outdated and unreliable BPL lists, some of them are 20 years old.
• Further, the central contribution to old-age pensions under NSAP has stagnated at a tiny ₹200 per month since 2006, with a slightly higher but still paltry amount (₹300 per month) for widows.

Social security pension schemes of states:

• Many States have enhanced the coverage and/or amount of social-security pensions beyond NSAP norms using their own funds and schemes.
• Some have even achieved “near-universal” (say 75%-80%) coverage of widows and elderly persons.

Beyond targets:

• Exclusion errors:
  • “Targeting” social benefits is always difficult and restricting them to BPL families has not worked well: there are huge exclusion errors in the BPL lists and when it comes to old-age pensions, targeting is not a good idea in any case.
  • Targeting tends to be based on household rather than individual indicators.
  • A widow or elderly person, however, may experience major deprivations even in a relatively well-off household.
  • A pension can help them to avoid extreme dependence on relatives who may or may not take good care of them, and it may even lead relatives to be more considerate.
• Complicated formalities:
  • Targeting tends to involve complicated formalities such as the submission of BPL certificates and other documents.
  • The formalities can be particularly forbidding for elderly persons with low incomes or little education, who are in greatest need of a pension.
  • In the Tamil Nadu sample, eligible persons who had been left out of pension schemes were found to be much poorer than the pension recipients (by more than just the pension).
• Quest to avoid inclusion errors:
  • The government officials have absorbed the idea that their job is to save the government money by making sure that no ineligible person qualifies by mistake.
  • For example, if the applicant has an able-bodied son in the city, they may be disqualified, regardless of whether they get any support from their son.
  • In their quest to avoid inclusion errors, many officials are less concerned about exclusion errors.

What can be done?

• Self-declared eligibility:
  • A better approach is to consider all widows and elderly or disabled persons as eligible, subject to simple and transparent “exclusion criteria”.
  • Eligibility can even be self-declared, with the burden of time-bound verification being placed on the local administration or gram panchayat.
  • Some cheating may happen, but it is unlikely that many privileged households will risk trouble for the sake of a small monthly pension.
  • And it is much preferable to accommodate some inclusion errors than to perpetuate the massive exclusion errors we are seeing today in targeted pension schemes.
• Widening the net:
  • The proposed move from targeted to near-universal pensions is not particularly new as it has already happened in several States and it requires larger pension budgets.
  • India’s social assistance schemes have low budgets and make a big difference to large numbers of people (about 40 million under NSAP).
  • The southern States are relatively well-off, but even some of India’s poorer States (such as Odisha and Rajasthan) have near-universal social security pensions.
  • It would be much easier for all States to do the same if the central government were to revamp the NSAP.
  • The NSAP budget this year is just ₹9,652 crore — more or less the same as 10 years ago in money terms, and much lower in real terms and this is not even 0.05% of India’s GDP.

Conclusion:

• Social security pensions, of course, are just the first step towards a dignified life for the elderly.
• They also need other support and facilities such as health care, disability aids, assistance with daily tasks, recreation opportunities, and a good social life.
• This should be a critical area of research, policy, and action in the near future.

Source: The Hindu

Mains Question:

Q. How far do you agree that near-universal social security pensions would be a good start to a radical expansion of public support for the elderly?