Policy Update
Diva Bhatia
Background
The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (MoSJE) was established in May 1998. Previously known as the Ministry of Welfare (1985–1998), MoSJE has a broader mandate for facilitating empowerment and social justice to the most marginalized sections of Indian society. This includes Scheduled Castes (SCs), Other Backward Classes (OBCs), persons with disabilities, senior citizens, victims of substance abuse, and the LGBTQ+ community (MoSJE, 2025).
Headquartered at Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi, and overseen by a Cabinet Minister supported by Ministers of State, the MoSJE coordinates policy formulation, scheme implementation, regulatory oversight, research, and capacity building through a network of five bureaus (SC Development; Backward Classes Coordination; Disability Affairs; Social Defense; Project, Research, Evaluation & Monitoring), statutory bodies, commissions, national institutes, and public sector undertakings. Since its renaming, the Ministry has enacted primary legislation – the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act (2007) and the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act (2013), and has several scholarship, vocational training, welfare and rehabilitation schemes as redress and to encourage inclusive growth.
Features and Functions
The MoSJE’s core functions include policy development, law drafting, scheme administration, monitoring and regulation, research, and capacity building. In terms of policy and legislation, the Ministry drafts and amends legislation aimed at protecting the rights and dignity of marginalized groups, and works with parliamentary committees and state governments to implement this new legislation. Examples of legislation include the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, which widened the definition of disability to nineteen categories and included regulations for accessibility standards, and the National Trust for Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disabilities Act, 1999, which established a statutory body for advocacy and service delivery.
Scheme administration is the largest area of activity for the Ministry, including both central and centrally sponsored ways of providing support for SC/OBC students, Pre-Matric and Post-Matric Scholarships, Deendayal Disabled Rehabilitation Scheme (DDRS), and the Self-Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers (SRMS), Vayo Abhyuday Yojana for persons of older age, and the National Action Plan for Drug Demand Reduction. These schemes provide pension, financial assistance, assistive devices, vocational training, stipends, institution-based support, and community-based rehabilitation support; focusing on educational continuation, livelihood, social focused, and health-based support.
Regulatory supervision is performed by commissions-the National Commissions for Scheduled Castes, Backward Classes, and Persons with Disabilities- and statutory bodies like the Office of the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities which is concerned with monitoring and compliance with anti-discrimination requirements, grievance investigations, and recommendations for reparation. The Social Defense Bureau enforces provisions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (1985) with provisions for rehabilitation and de-addiction centers and also serves as advisory to raise awareness.
The Bureau of Projects, Research, Evaluation & Monitoring is responsible for research, evaluation and monitoring. The projects and initiatives commissioned by the Bureau’s research studies include studies on the efficacy of schemes, census surveys on demographics- like surveys of manual scavengers-as well as the study of their impacts on HCBS beneficiaries which inform ongoing policy revisions and improvements. The Bureau also builds the capacity of national institutes (for example, Deendayal Upadhyaya Institute for the Physically Handicapped New Delhi and Ali Yavar Jung National Institute for the Hearing Handicapped Mumbai) that conduct training programs for beneficiaries, staff of NGOs and government officials to improve vocational skills, accessibility standards and improve the quality of services to persons with disabilities in India.
Performance and Impact
MoSJE increased its outreach and deepened its scheme benefits from 2021-22 to 2023-24, as demonstrated by their Annual Reports (MoSJE, 2024). In education, Pre-Matric and Post-Matric scholarships for SC/OBC beneficiaries increased from 3.2 million in 2021-22 to 3.5 million in 2023-24, while scholarships increased in disbursement from ₹ 1500 crore to ₹ 1,850 crore, which contributed to reducing drop-out rates of marginalized cohorts, (MoSJE, 2024a). The DDRS funded 1,100 NGOs in 2021-22, and increased to 1,250 NGOs by 2023-24, and it reaches more than 120,000 persons with disabilities annually through the delivery of vocational training, provision of mobility aids, and community-based rehabilitation.
On the other hand, although budgetary allocations increased heavily to the SRMS scheme from ₹60 crore in 2021-22 to ₹70 crore in 2022-23, utilization remained suboptimal (7% by December 2022) due to delays in administration processes and limits in capacity among NGOs, leading greater urgency for district-level monitoring. The Vayo Abhyuday Yojana made great strides activating funds for senior citizen welfare, increasing support for old age homes and geriatric care by 18%, which benefited over 15,000 elderly individuals all over the country in 2023-24 (MoSJE, 2024).
The Social Defense Bureau has increased de-addiction services from 220 centers in 2021–22 to 260 centers in 2023–24, providing support for around 45,000 beneficiaries on a yearly basis through medical treatment, counseling, and community outreach. Monitoring data revealed a 12 percent improvement in timely scholarship disbursement compared to the previous year and a 9 percent increase in program completion for drug demand reduction, showing that protocols to support implementation have improved, and tracking of beneficiaries has improved (MoSJE, 2023).
Emerging Issues
Despite having made tangible advancements, MoSJE continues to face significant hurdles going forward :-
First, the poor utilization rates of funds, particularly in rehabilitation schemes like SRMS, are indicative of bureaucratic delays, long lag times for NGO approvals, and gaps in outreach to beneficiaries.
Second, while the digitalization of application processes for schemes has improved efficiency, the move to online applications has made the digital equity divide worse for rural and remote communities that lack internet connectivity and/or digital literacy skills. This will call for new ways of blending online and offline services.
Third, gaps in coordination across ministries: Health, Education, Rural Development; have produced poor welfare delivery and wasteful duplication of effort which highlights a need for improvement in inter-ministerial coordination.
Fourth, gaps in data and variability in collection methods and surveys are not able to provide real time assessments, especially when addressing sensitive topics like substance misuse prevalence, manual scavenging practice.
Lastly, the socioeconomic disruptions across populations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic created a significant increase and fragmentation in mental health frustrations, poverty, and social exclusion for vulnerable groups. There may be a call for integrated psychosocial support and its incorporation in mainstream schemes, to mainstream vulnerable groups.
The Way Forward
In the course of three years of joint action, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has enabled educational services and access, rehabilitation programs for people with disabilities, social defense, and services for senior citizens through new schemes, funding, and processes for monitoring outcomes. To capitalize upon these improvements and respond to ongoing priorities this report recommends actions for the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.
First, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment should streamline processes for fund dispersal and application by completely digitizing the approval’s, disbursements, and reporting processes through a common online system. Together with the online system, the MoSJE could set up physical facilitation centres in districts of under-service to assist beneficiaries and NGOs with the application and reporting process.
Secondly, to close the digital divide, the Ministry needs to develop hybrid outreach models through our fellowship scheme utilizing the common service centre, mobile teams, and public libraries to deliver schemes to communities that ‘old school’ welfare does not reach.
Thirdly, we recommend to the MoSJE that we consider establishing an enhanced inter-ministerial task force with representatives from Health, Education, Partners for Change with Rural Development and the Women & Child Development team, and Labour to coordinate welfare work, data sharing and avoid duplication of welfare delivery wherever possible. Moreover, we can see the benefit for the MoSJE of bringing together all deviance social service schemes on a common online Management Information System (MIS) to monitor implementation and outcomes in real-time. This way, fund dispersals could be monitored to enable changing priorities as outcomes required. We suggest this as a key recommendation.
Fifth, as previously noted, capacity building must go further than beneficiaries to include regular training and accreditation of NGO partners and district officials in project management, fiscal transparency, e-tools, and community engagement and mobilisation.
Finally, it’s important to build strong psychosocial support into mainstream programs to address the mental health and social exclusion crisis associated with the pandemic. Working with partners like the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (NIMHANS) and verified mental health NGOs will facilitate linking pathways for integrated care. If the MoSJE implements the above strategies it would significantly improve scheme implementation and inclusivity as well as support MoSJE’s aspirations for a socially just and empowered India.
References
About the Contributor: Diva Bhatia is a research intern at IMPRI and currently pursuing a major in Political Science from Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi. Her research interests include gender studies, international relations and exploring the socio-political intricacies of North East India.
Acknowledgement: The author sincerely thanks Ms. Aasthaba Jadeja and IMPRI fellows for their valuable contribution.
Disclaimer: All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organisation.
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Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions (MoPPGP), 1985
