Welfare Schemes for Vulnerable Sections: Women and children

Who are the vulnerable sections?

Like a teacher giving extra coaching to students who missed school, so the whole class can finish the syllabus together.

Who they are: Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Other Backward Classes (OBCs), religious minorities, women and children, the elderly, persons with disabilities (PwDs) and transgender persons.

Constitutional basis.

• Article 46 (a Directive Principle): the State shall promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people, and in particular of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.
• Article 41: public assistance in old age, sickness and disablement.
• Articles 15(4) and 16(4): special provisions and reservation.

Census 2011, measured counts.

Mains 2023 quoted: “Development and welfare schemes for the vulnerable, by its nature, are discriminatory in approach.”

• Yes, they treat groups differently, but that is positive discrimination: equal treatment of unequal people keeps inequality alive.
• Article 15(4) itself allows special provisions.
• The real risks are elsewhere: the creamy layer capturing benefits, stigma, and exclusion of the needy who lack papers.

Answer frame: group, problem (data), constitutional basis, main schemes, gaps, way forward. Use one number per group from Census or official surveys.

What UPSC asks: Prelims: Article 46. Mains: positive discrimination. Next likely angle: Census 2011 counts.

Schemes for women and children

Mother and child health. Prelims 2012 asked what the endeavour of the ‘Janani Suraksha Yojana’ Programme is.

• Launched on 12 April 2005 under the National Rural Health Mission, JSY gives cash to promote institutional deliveries and help meet the cost of delivery.
• It does not pay for wage loss. That is the job of the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY), which gives ₹5,000 for the first child and ₹6,000 for a second child who is a girl.

Prelims 2024 asked about the ‘Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan’ (PMSMA).

• On the 9th of every month, pregnant women in the second and third trimesters get free antenatal (before-birth) check-ups at government facilities.
• Private doctors volunteer to provide services there.
• It does not promise six months of post-delivery care, so only statement 2 is right.

Ministry of Women and Child Development umbrella schemes for 2021-22 to 2025-26 (teaching summary).

Mains 2016 asked candidates to examine the main provisions of the National Child Policy. The National Policy for Children, 2013 treats everyone below 18 as a child and sets four priority areas:

• survival, health and nutrition;
• education and development;
• protection;
• participation.

Gaps: child marriage, child labour, stunting and weak child protection units at district level.

Mains 2025: “Women’s social capital complements in advancing empowerment and gender equity.” Social capital means networks and trust. Self-help groups, mahila sanghs and federations help women save, borrow, bargain with officials and stand for panchayat posts.

Mains 2021 noted that the social attitude towards women has stayed patriarchal and asked what interventions beyond education and empowerment schemes could help:

• gender-sensitive school curricula;
• men as partners in care work;
• women’s land and property titles;
• strict action on dowry and violence;
• positive media portrayal.

What UPSC asks: Prelims: JSY vs PMMVY; PMSMA on the 9th of the month. Next likely angle: National Policy for Children 2013.