Social Protection Network Across Indian States

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.