Assessing the Outreach of Targeted Development Programmes—A Case Study from a South Indian Village

A Reddy, Anindita Sarkar and Yumiko Onishi
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Anindita Sarkar: Department of Geography, Miranda House, University of Delhi, Delhi 110007, India
Yumiko Onishi: IC Net Limited, Delhi 110091, India

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 7, 1-22

Abstract: This paper explores beneficiary targeting of government programmes in a village in India. The analysis is based on all 228 households of the village and focus group discussions. The results show that there is a large exclusion error in targeted programmes, which have mostly excluded the poor and the needy. Most schemes have a prerequisite of asset ownership, such as agricultural land, which benefits resource-rich farmers with large landholdings. The relationship between benefits received and income of households is best represented by an inverted ‘u’-shape curve, indicating the middle-income category benefits more than the poorest. The scope and scale of welfare programmes, especially Direct Benefit Transfers, increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. For inclusion of the poorest of the poor, welfare and development schemes need to be decoupled from landownership in rural areas.

Keywords: development programmes; welfare schemes; beneficiary; targeted schemes; socially disadvantaged groups (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:11:y:2022:i:7:p:1030-:d:857505

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