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GS Paper: GS2-10.Government Policies & Interventions for development of various sectors (issues in their design, implementation)

  • VB-G RAM G scheme trails MGNREGS by 9% in August

    Why in the News

    The Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin), known as VB-G RAM G, generated 9.01 percent fewer persondays in August than the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) did in the same month a year earlier. The new scheme replaced MGNREGS from July 2026, and its first month recorded a far steeper fall, so the two months together sit well below the corresponding period of 2025. The Union Ministry of Rural Development has said it is too early to judge the scheme, attributing part of the dip to a 60 day pause linked to notified peak agricultural periods, which is a feature the new Act introduces. The contested point is whether a smaller volume of work reflects a transition between two systems or a design that narrows the guarantee itself.

    What is the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin)?

    1. VB-G RAM G: It is the Centre’s rural wage employment programme, operational from July 2026, which has replaced MGNREGS as the vehicle for guaranteed work to rural households.
    2. Peak agricultural period flexibility: The governing Act lets each State notify its own peak agricultural periods, during which the programme pauses so it complements farm work rather than competing with it for labour.
    3. Sub State notification: States may issue area specific notifications for districts, blocks or gram panchayats, based on agro climatic conditions and local cropping patterns.
    4. Entitlement document: Work is accessed through a Gramin Rozgar Guarantee card, and job cards already issued under MGNREGS remain valid for the purpose.

    How far has work generation fallen?

    1. First month: Persondays fell from 17.65 crore in July 2025 under MGNREGS to 9.18 crore in July 2026, a decline of 48.01 percent.
    2. Second month: Persondays fell from 12.12 crore in August 2025 to 11.03 crore this August, the decline narrowing sharply against July.
    3. Cumulative position: Across July and August together the figure fell from 29.78 crore to 20.21 crore persondays, a decline of 32.13 percent.
    4. Direction inside the new scheme: August recorded a modest improvement in employment generation over July, so the programme is rising month on month while still trailing its predecessor year on year.

    Why is the year on year comparison understated?

    1. A missing State in the base year: No persondays at all were generated in West Bengal under MGNREGS in 2025, so the comparison base excludes one large State’s entire contribution.
    2. Origin of the stoppage: Implementation of MGNREGS in West Bengal was stalled in December 2021.
    3. Formal suspension of funds: The Union government officially froze all financial disbursements to the State on 9 March 2022.
    4. Effect on the measured gap: With the base year short of one major State’s persondays, the true fall in work generated is wider than the reported percentages show.

    What explains the dip, according to the Ministry?

    1. Too early to judge: The Union Ministry of Rural Development’s stated position is that two months of operation are not a basis on which to assess the scheme’s performance.
    2. The agricultural pause: A 60 day pause in employment through the peak agricultural season is cited as a contributor to the lower persondays generated.
    3. Notification progress: 16 States and Union Territories have so far notified their respective peak agricultural periods.
    4. The stated design intent: Tailoring the pause to local calendars is meant to let the employment programme complement peak agricultural activity instead of drawing labour away from it.

    What has the migration from MGNREGS involved?

    1. Automatic migration: Every worker registered under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 has been migrated to VB-G RAM G, irrespective of the e-KYC status of the job card.
    2. New cards issued: 6,40,779 new Gramin Rozgar Guarantee cards have been issued across States and Union Territories since the scheme became operational.
    3. e-KYC completion: e-KYC has been completed for 15.89 crore workers, including 10.27 crore of the 10.84 crore active workers, roughly 95 percent.
    4. Pending e-KYC is not a bar: The Ministry has clarified that incomplete e-KYC does not prevent a worker from demanding or receiving employment.

    Challenges to VB-G RAM G

    1. A notified pause narrows the guarantee: Suspending work for a fixed stretch each year withdraws the entitlement in exactly the districts where farm distress and the farm calendar overlap. Eg. A landless labourer in a rainfall deficient district finds less farm work available precisely in the season the pause assumes is busy.
      The Fix: Make the notified pause conditional on a district level rainfall or sown area trigger, so it lapses automatically in a deficient season.
    2. A demand driven scheme is only as good as recorded demand: Persondays fall when work is not sought or not registered, and the same number can be read either way. Eg. Unmet demand under MGNREGS was persistently understated because applications were often not entered against a dated receipt.
      The Fix: Publish district wise work applications received alongside persondays generated, so unmet demand is visible in the same dataset.
    3. Verification requirements exclude at the margin: Digital attendance and identity steps drop workers who cannot complete them, even where the rule says they are not disqualified. Eg. The National Mobile Monitoring System attendance requirement under MGNREGS cost workers their day’s record at sites with poor connectivity.
      The Fix: Provide a recorded offline fallback for attendance and verification at every worksite, with the physical muster roll valid on its own.
    4. Wage payment delays suppress participation: Work is unattractive where wages arrive weeks after it is done, and the delay depends on fund release rather than on anything the worker controls. Eg. Compensation for delayed wages has been a standing complaint against MGNREGS despite the statutory timeline behind it.
      The Fix: Release delay compensation automatically from the same system that records the delay, without requiring a separate claim from the worker.
    5. A funding dispute can suspend an entire State: Where the Centre withholds funds over compliance findings, the entitlement lapses for every worker in that State at once. Eg. Disbursements to West Bengal were frozen and the scheme produced no work there for years afterwards.
      The Fix: Route any withholding through a time bound adjudication carrying an interim wage payment channel, so a compliance dispute does not extinguish a statutory entitlement.

    Conclusion

    Two months are a thin basis for a verdict on a programme that has replaced a statutory guarantee covering most of rural India’s registered workforce. The unresolved tension is between a seasonal pause designed to leave farm labour undisturbed and a guarantee whose whole purpose is to be available when other work is not. The marker to watch is what the remaining States notify as their peak agricultural periods, since the length and the timing of those windows will decide how much of the year the guarantee actually covers.

    Back2Basics: Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

    1. Nature: It created a legal right to wage employment in rural areas, enforceable on demand rather than granted at administrative discretion.
    2. Entitlement: It guaranteed 100 days of unskilled manual work in a financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteered for it.
    3. Design safeguards: It required work within 15 days of demand, an unemployment allowance where work was not provided in time, and at least one third of beneficiaries to be women.
    4. Administration: It was implemented by the Union Ministry of Rural Development through gram panchayats, with works selected in the gram sabha and wages paid into workers’ accounts.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “Among the following who are eligible to benefit from the “Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act”?”

  • Experts back warnings for high level of each nutrient — not just fats, sugar, or salt content

    Why in the News

    A front of pack warning should be triggered when a food carries a high level of any single nutrient, and not only when it is high in two nutrients at once. That position has been put to the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), the country’s food safety regulator, by global nutrition researchers and by the ICMR National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), whose Dietary Guidelines for Indians 2024 supply the thresholds being used. FSSAI has proposed a red hexagonal warning triggered only where a food is high in two of three nutrients in the first phase, moving to each nutrient in the second. The Supreme Court is separately examining a petition to make front of pack labels mandatory on foods high in fats, sugar or salt. What is contested is how far the first phase label can be diluted before it stops doing the work it exists to do.

    What is a front of pack warning label?

    1. Front of pack warning label: A mark placed on the front face of a packaged food declaring that the product carries a high level of a nutrient of concern.
    2. Nutrients covered: The Indian proposal covers fats, sugar and salt.
    3. Threshold basis: A warning appears once the nutrient crosses a defined cut off, and those cut offs are referenced to the Dietary Guidelines for Indians 2024.

    What do the experts want the trigger rule to be?

    1. Single nutrient trigger: The warning should be triggered for each nutrient separately, so a food high in salt and in fat carries a red hexagon stating each.
    2. Multiple labels as a signal: Evidence from Chile shows consumers understand products carrying more warning labels to be less healthy than products with fewer or none.
    3. Evidence of impact: Warning labels are the only type of label with real world evidence of impact. That evidence covers consumer beliefs and behaviour, the nutritional profile of the food supply, and the healthfulness of purchases and dietary intake.

    Why are the colour and background of the label contested?

    1. Visual absorption into packaging: A colour based label placed over packaging of a similar colour becomes less noticeable, and surrounding graphic elements can minimise it further.
    2. Black hexagons: The experts asked for black hexagonal boxes in place of the red one, since black and white designs are harder to visually mask on colourful packaging.
    3. A fixed contrasting background: Mandating a white background behind the warning preserves its purpose, which is rapid identification at a glance.

    What does the ICMR National Institute of Nutrition add on thresholds?

    1. Energy density as the basis: The thresholds for identifying foods high in fats, sugars and salt should be set on the total energy density of the food.
    2. No cut off read in isolation: Added fat and added sugar cut offs should not be considered apart from the accompanying energy and total nutrient content. FSSAI told the court that the warnings would be triggered on the levels of added sugars and added fats.
    3. The failure mode of a two nutrient rule: Products substantially high in one nutrient escape consumer attention while the two nutrient trigger operates.
    4. Higher thresholds, time bound: Where phasing is operationally necessary, a time bound transition at higher thresholds, progressively lowered, avoids indefinite postponement.

    What has the Supreme Court asked the regulator for?

    1. A justified timeline: The Court has asked FSSAI for a scientifically justified and clearly defined timeline for implementing the second phase.
    2. The recorded reason: Without such a timeline, the Court said, implementation may take a backseat or be postponed indefinitely.
    3. Sweetened beverages: The Court also sought clarity on which sweetened beverages will receive the warning in the first phase.

    Challenges to the front of pack warning label

    1. Reach into the unpackaged food trade: A label rule touches only packaged food, and a large share of what is sold in India moves loose or through small manufacturers. Eg. Street sold namkeen and locally packed sweets carry no nutrition panel at all.
      The Fix: Tie labelling compliance to the FSSAI licence and registration number small manufacturers already hold, so enforcement runs through an existing list.
    2. Reformulation to the threshold rather than to health: A manufacturer can cut a flagged nutrient just below the cut off while leaving the product’s overall energy unchanged. Eg. Sugar trimmed slightly and offset by fat keeps a product under the trigger.
      The Fix: Review the cut offs on a fixed cycle against reformulation data collected from the market.
    3. Legibility on small packs: A hexagon on a single serve sachet occupies too little area to be read at a glance, which defeats the design’s purpose. Eg. Single serve sachets dominate rural sales of biscuits, chips and instant noodles.
      The Fix: Set a minimum label size as a share of the front panel rather than as an absolute dimension.
    4. Regulatory delay through consultation: Labelling rules draw sustained industry objection, and each further round of consultation pushes implementation out. Eg. The Indian Nutrition Rating star system, put out in draft in 2022, has still not taken effect.
      The Fix: Notify the second phase thresholds in the same regulation as the first, so the transition needs no fresh rule making.

    Conclusion

    The question is no longer whether India will label packaged food but whether the first version of the label is strong enough to be worth carrying. A trigger that waits for a second nutrient builds a gap into the rule and gives manufacturers a period in which the worst single nutrient products stay unmarked. The regulator now has to answer the Court with a dated transition rather than a stated intention, and that answer is what decides the value of everything already agreed.

    Back2Basics: Food Safety and Standards Authority of India

    1. Statutory body established under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
    2. Functions under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
    3. Lays down science based standards for food articles and regulates their manufacture, storage, distribution, sale and import.
    4. Issues licences and registrations to food businesses and runs the national food safety surveillance system.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2016] With reference to pre-packaged items in India, it is mandatory to the manufacturer to put which of the following information on the main label, as per the Food Safety and Standards (Packaging and Labelling) Regulations, 2011? 1. List of ingredients including additives 2. Nutrition information 3. Recommendation, if any, made by the medical profession about the possibility of any allergic reactions 4. Vegetarian/non-vegetarian Select the correct answer using the code given below. (a) 1, 2 and 3 (b) 2, 3 and 4 (c) 1, 2 and 4 (d) 1 and 4 only Answer: (c)”

  • Securing Farmers’ Future with Dignity: seven years of the farmer pension scheme

    Why in News

    The Pradhan Mantri Kisan Maandhan Yojana (PM KMY) completed seven years. PM KMY is a voluntary contributory pension scheme for small and marginal farmers.

    Core facts

    1. Launch: PM KMY launched on 12 September 2019.
    2. Core benefit: It assures a minimum pension of ₹3,000 per month from the age of 60.
    3. Enrolment: Total enrolment is 24,96,252 farmers as of February 2026. Haryana leads with 5.75 lakh. Bihar follows with 3.46 lakh.
    4. Outlay used: Government investment since 2019 is ₹540.66 crore.
    5. Administration: It is a Central Sector Scheme under the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. The Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) is the pension fund manager.
    6. Eligibility: It covers farmers holding cultivable land up to two hectares. The entry age band is 18 to 40 years. Names must appear in land records as of 1 August 2019.
    7. Contribution: The farmer pays ₹55 to ₹200 per month by entry age. The government matches the farmer’s contribution equally.
    8. Family pension: A surviving spouse receives 50% of the pension, that is ₹1,500 per month.
    9. Exclusions: Income tax payers, registered professionals and beneficiaries of other pension schemes are barred. These other schemes include the National Pension System (NPS), the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), the Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maandhan (PM SYM) and the Pradhan Mantri Laghu Vyapari Maandhan (PM LVM).
    10. Enrolment route: Enrolment runs through Common Service Centres using Aadhaar, a bank account and mobile One Time Password. A farmer may route PM KISAN benefits into the PM KMY contribution.

    Static Context

    1. PM KISAN is the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi. It transfers ₹6,000 per year in three instalments to landholding farmer families.
    2. A Central Sector Scheme is funded fully by the Union government. A Centrally Sponsored Scheme splits funding between the Centre and the states.
    3. LIC is a statutory insurer. It was set up under the Life Insurance Corporation Act, 1956.

    Prelims angle

    PM KMY pension amount of ₹3,000 and entry age 18 to 40; LIC as the fund manager; the two hectare landholding ceiling; the distinction between Central Sector and Centrally Sponsored schemes; overlap bars with PM SYM and NPS.

    Mains angle

    GS Paper 2, welfare schemes for vulnerable sections. The scheme suits a question on old age income security for the unorganised and agrarian workforce.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2016] Regarding ‘Atal Pension Yojana’, which of the following statements is/are correct?
    1. It is a minimum guaranteed pension scheme mainly targeted at unorganized sector workers.
    2. Only one member of a family can join the scheme.
    3. Same amount of pension is guaranteed for the spouse for life after subscriber’s death.
    Select the correct answer using the code given below.
    (a) 1 only
    (b) 2 and 3 only
    (c) 1 and 3 only
    (d) 1, 2 and 3
    Answer: (c)”

  • E-commerce firms brought under tighter regulation

    Why in the News

    The Union Consumer Affairs Department has notified the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) (Amendment) Rules, 2026, published in the gazette on 9 September and operational from 1 January 2027. The Rules require a platform to disclose the importer and country of origin for imported goods, and to publish its own legal identity and grievance contacts. They set a 48 hour clock for acknowledging a consumer complaint and one month for redressing it. The stated purpose is protection against dark patterns and bundled fees, meaning practices that shape a purchase before any dispute arises. The obligation now attaches to the platform rather than to the seller listing on it, which shifts the burden of a purchase decision from the buyer’s diligence to the platform’s disclosure.

    What are the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules?

    1. The parent statute: The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 replaced the 1986 Act and empowered the Union government to make rules preventing unfair trade practices in electronic commerce.
    2. The 2020 baseline: The Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 were framed under that power and set the existing duties for platforms, which the 2026 amendment extends.
    3. Who the Rules bind: An e-commerce entity is the platform that owns or operates the digital marketplace, and the duties attach to that entity and not only to the seller whose listing appears on it.
    4. The enforcement route: Contraventions are actionable under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, including through the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA), the regulator the Act created to act against unfair trade practices on its own motion.

    What must a platform now disclose?

    1. Origin of imported goods: Platforms must disclose the details of the importer and the country of origin for imported goods.
    2. Its own identity and locations: Every e-commerce entity must provide its legal name, the principal geographic address of its headquarters and of all its branches, and the details of its website.
    3. Where a buyer can reach it: Contact details for customer care and for the grievance officer must be provided.

    What obligations do the Rules place beyond disclosure?

    1. Acknowledge within two days: The grievance officer must acknowledge receipt of any consumer complaint within 48 hours.
    2. Redress within a month: The complaint must be redressed within one month.
    3. Dark patterns are named: The amendment is framed as protecting buyers against dark patterns, meaning interface design that steers a user into a choice they did not intend. Eg. A pre ticked add on, or a countdown that manufactures urgency.
    4. Bundled fees are named: The Rules also address fees bundled into a displayed price, where the amount a buyer finally pays differs from the amount that drew them to the listing.

    Challenges to enforcing the E-Commerce Rules

    1. Disclosure without verification: The Rules require the platform to display what the seller declares about origin, and impose no duty to verify that declaration. Eg. Country of origin fields on marketplace listings have remained inconsistent since the 2020 Rules first required them, with the same product listed under different origins by different sellers.
      The Fix: Make the platform liable for a materially false origin declaration on a listing it hosts, so verification becomes cheaper than the penalty.
    2. The clock times the reply, not the remedy: A platform that records a refusal inside one month has complied with the redress requirement. Eg. A rejected return closed within the window counts as redressed under the same clause as a refunded one.
      The Fix: Require the grievance officer’s closure to record the remedy actually given, and make an unremedied closure appealable to the CCPA.
    3. An enumerated list of dark patterns dates quickly: Interface nudges can be redesigned faster than a rule can name them. Eg. The CCPA’s 2023 guidelines on dark patterns named 13 specified practices, and new variants appeared outside that list.
      The Fix: Add a residual test turning on whether the interface obtained consent the user would not have given had the choice been presented neutrally.
    4. The grievance officer is not independent: The officer deciding the complaint is the platform’s own employee, assessing the platform’s own conduct. Eg. The Information Technology Rules had to create a Grievance Appellate Committee above platform grievance officers after first level redress proved inadequate.
      The Fix: Create an appellate tier above the platform grievance officer, so a rejected complaint has a route that does not begin in a consumer court.
    5. Cross border sellers sit outside reach: A foreign seller shipping directly to an Indian buyer has no Indian entity for the Rules to bind. Eg. Listings fulfilled from outside India name no Indian importer, which is precisely the field the Rules require to be displayed.
      The Fix: Require any platform serving Indian buyers to appoint a resident authorised representative answerable under the Rules, on the model used for foreign data fiduciaries.
    6. The practices stay lawful until commencement: The Rules were gazetted in September and commence on 1 January 2027, so the conduct they name remains permitted in the intervening months. Eg. The festive season carrying the year’s highest online sales volumes falls inside that gap.
      The Fix: Bring the disclosure obligations into force on notification and reserve the transition period for the systems dependent grievance timings alone.

    Conclusion

    The amendment moves the burden of a purchase decision from the buyer’s diligence to the platform’s disclosure. It leaves open who is answerable when the disclosure itself is wrong. A timed grievance channel run by the platform’s own officer measures response speed rather than outcome, so compliance can rise without redress improving. What to watch is whether enforcement directions issue against a named platform under the new obligations, since a rule tested only through individual consumer complaints moves at the pace of those complaints.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2022] With reference to foreign-owned e-commerce firms operating in India, which of the following statements is/are correct ? 1. They can sell their own goods in addition to offering their platforms as market-places. 2. The degree to which they can own big sellers on their platforms is limited. Select the correct answer using the code given below : (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2 ANSWER: (b)”

  • Faith travels first class

    Why in the News

    Pilgrimage in India has been reorganised into a premium travel market, with packages priced from tens of thousands of rupees to several lakh and a projected sector growth rate of 18.2% a year. Two central schemes have funded the sites the market operates on, sanctioning projects at religious and heritage sites and across thematic circuits. The Ministry of Tourism maintains no data on how many pilgrims actually travel, and none on how much of the market is luxury. The commercial volume has reached the point where Char Dham helicopter operations alone exceed Rs 1,000 crore a season, with a fifth fatal crash in six weeks on that route. Public money is therefore building capacity at sites whose ecological and safety limits are measured against no pilgrim number at all.

    How large is the pilgrimage market, and what does the state know about it?

    1. A projected growth rate: A 2025 report by the consulting firm KPMG projects India’s spiritual tourism sector growing at a compound annual growth rate of 18.2%.
    2. The Ministry of Tourism does not count pilgrims: It maintains no specific data on the number of pilgrim visits across the country.
    3. Nor the premium segment: No data exists on what share of the spiritual travel market falls in the luxury or affordable luxury categories, the latter meaning packages bridging the mass and luxury markets.
    4. What the government states in place of a figure: Press Information Bureau handouts say spiritual tourism continues to attract millions of domestic and international visitors every year, with no number attached.

    What has public money built, and on what stated terms?

    1. PRASHAD: The Union Ministry of Tourism’s Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual Augmentation Drive (PRASHAD) gives financial assistance to State governments and Union Territory administrations for tourism infrastructure at identified religious and heritage sites. It has sanctioned 54 projects worth Rs 1,726.74 crore, focused on infrastructure and visitor amenities.
    2. Swadesh Darshan: The scheme develops integrated tourism infrastructure across 15 thematic circuits, including the Buddhist, Sufi, Himalayan, Krishna and Ramayana circuits. It has sanctioned 76 projects worth Rs 5,290.33 crore as of March 2026.
    3. The stated justification: A government explainer titled ‘A Decade of Tourism-Led Growth’, published in June 2026, holds that journeys of faith sustain local livelihoods, support traditional crafts and enterprises, and drive regional economic growth.
    4. Connectivity is the effect travellers report: Pilgrims attribute the new ease of reaching religious places to central efforts to connect religious corridors and improve connectivity.

    What is driving demand into the non budget segment?

    1. Three named drivers: Central infrastructure development around religious sites, rising religiosity, and women’s increasing mobility and independent spending power have together raised demand for group tours in non budget categories.
    2. Two events reset the base: The Kumbh Mela and the inauguration of the Ram Mandir pushed up demand for spiritual tourism.
    3. The traveller profile has changed: Youth now opt for pilgrimages, and group packages are surging in popularity with women travelling in them with or without their husbands.
    4. A reopened route created a new destination: China reopened the Kailash Mansarovar route after six years. The first batch of pilgrims travelled in 2025, and the site has since become the destination travellers flock to.
    5. Visibility is part of the pull: The drivers include an urge to reconnect with roots and the social media pressure to be seen, alongside narratives crafted by spiritual leaders and katha vachaks, meaning religious storytellers, that draw the youth.

    What does the premium segment cost, and who supplies it?

    1. The general price range: A religious tour to another State costs a household around Rs 50,000, and Uttarakhand packages run from Rs 40,000 to between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 5 lakh a day.
    2. The Kailash Mansarovar trip: It cost Rs 2.72 lakh a person for one recent couple, and can reach Rs 7 lakh depending on the operator and the route.
    3. Branded packages are the growth end: One travel company sells an “Ayodhya to Kashi Quick Bhakti Yatra with Taj stays” at over Rs 1 lakh, another sells “exclusive glamping packages” for the Kumbh Mela, and several operators market “spiritual luxury” or “VIP darshan” at Tirupati.
    4. The supply base in one State: Uttarakhand’s religious tourism rests on five luxury hotels, over 500 travel agents and private helicopter service providers, offering facilities from basic to five star.
    5. Who is paying at the top end: Seniors are opting for luxury itineraries paid for by children living abroad, and wealthier travellers choose helicopter packages for quick darshans, sometimes clubbed with birthdays or anniversaries.
    6. Hotels report it as their demand driver: The Hotel Association of India attributes strong 2025 hospitality demand to spiritual hotspots including Ayodhya, Jammu, Varanasi, Puri, Amritsar and Tirupati, with the Maha Kumbh lifting Tier II and Tier III markets and steady growth in international arrivals along spiritual circuits.

    Why has the Char Dham helicopter business become a safety problem?

    1. The pilgrimage has changed mode: The Char Dham Yatra covers Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath, traditionally completed on foot in a clockwise direction beginning from Yamunotri, and is now done by road or helicopter.
    2. The business is large: Char Dham helicopter operations, split between roughly nine shuttle companies and about 25 charter firms, generate a seasonal business exceeding Rs 1,000 crore.
    3. Competition is translating into cut corners: Industry insiders warn that intense competition pushes safety into the background, with corners cut and checks skipped.
    4. The named consequences of the sortie incentive: Pilots are often incentivised to increase daily sorties, which produces fatigue, rushed decisions, risky flights in unpredictable mountain weather, and minimal oversight of passenger limits or pricing.
    5. The cost has already been paid: A family of three travelling from Yavatmal in Maharashtra to Kedarnath for a birthday was killed in the fifth helicopter crash in Uttarakhand within six weeks.

    What pressure is the volume putting on the sites themselves?

    1. Slopes are being cut for the capacity: Local transport operators report that hills are being cut as tourist numbers rise, and that the mountains were not built for business at this scale.
    2. A flood hit a pilgrimage route: A flood on the Nepal-China border devastated the area around Gyirong Port and swept away the check post on the Kailash Mansarovar route.
    3. Concentration at Amarnath: Around 1.13 lakh people reportedly visited Pahalgam in the first five days of the 2026 season, from where the Amarnath Cave lies 72 km from the district headquarters.
    4. A town rebuilt around one temple: Shirdi, once a town of just over 25,000 residents, now records daily footfall of about 40,000, rising to 1 lakh during celebrations, served by over 150 luxury hotels.
    5. The revenue that footfall generates: The Shree Saibaba Sansthan Trust recorded total annual income of Rs 850.62 crore in 2024-25 and held Rs 3,918 crore in bank fixed deposits as of 31 March 2025. Donations received there include the currencies of 26 countries.
    6. The conservation position: An environment organisation working at Pahalgam holds that the fragile Himalayas must be protected from any further haphazard development.

    Is the public spending priority defensible?

    1. The allocation: The Maharashtra government has planned expenditure of Rs 34,000 crore on infrastructure and hospitality for the 2027 Simhastha Kumbh Mela at Nashik.
    2. The opportunity cost stated from the bench: A Supreme Court judge observed at a public event that 0.1% of the Kumbh allocation spent on Marathi medium schools could have saved more than 100 schools from closure, against a shrinking education budget.
    3. The State’s answer: The Maharashtra Chief Minister holds that 93% of the allocation is going into permanent infrastructure that will serve Nashik for the next 50 years.
    4. A non economic objective rides along: The State government also intends to use the event to assert that Lord Hanuman was born at Anjaneri near Nashik rather than at Kishkinda in Karnataka.

    Challenges to scheme led pilgrimage tourism

    1. The state funds what it does not measure: Infrastructure is sanctioned site by site with no pilgrim count, so no sanction can be tested against the load it was meant to carry. Eg. The project counts under the two central schemes noted above carry no matching pilgrim number.
      The Fix: Make a site level footfall estimate and a carrying capacity assessment a condition of sanction under both schemes, published with the project.
    2. No carrying capacity ceiling on Himalayan shrines: Construction and flight permissions are granted by separate sector regulators, with no single authority setting a daily limit for a fragile site. Eg. The National Green Tribunal has repeatedly heard petitions on unregulated construction along Himalayan pilgrimage routes.
      The Fix: Set a statutory daily visitor ceiling per shrine, derived from a published carrying capacity study and revised on a fixed cycle.
    3. Aviation safety is priced out by competition: Operators bidding for the same short seasonal window compete on price and turnaround, which is paid for out of maintenance and pilot duty time. Eg. The Uttarakhand crash sequence noted above.
      The Fix: Fix a maximum daily sortie count and pilot duty hour limit for the season, enforced by the civil aviation regulator rather than left to the operator.
    4. Event capital spending crowds out recurring social spending: Expenditure on an event is one time and visible, and the school or health budget it displaces is recurring and is not. Eg. The comparison drawn from the bench between the Kumbh allocation and Marathi medium school closures.
      The Fix: Publish an event budget alongside the department budgets it draws from, so the trade off is recorded at approval rather than argued afterwards.
    5. Local livelihoods capture a shrinking share: As packages move to branded operators, air charter and luxury hotels, the spending bypasses the local vendors the schemes’ own justification names. Eg. Kailash Mansarovar and Kumbh packages are sold end to end by national travel companies rather than by operators based at the site.
      The Fix: Reserve a share of on site concessions and transport permits at scheme funded sites for locally registered operators.

    Conclusion

    Pilgrimage in India is now a premium consumer market resting on publicly funded infrastructure, and the state that funds it does not count the people it is funding for. Two claims therefore cannot both be tested: that the spending sustains local livelihoods, and that the volume stays within what the sites can bear. Neither the ecological ceiling nor the safety record can be argued against a number nobody collects. Until that count exists, a growth projection will keep doing the work that evidence should.

    Back2Basics: Simhastha Kumbh Mela

    1. What it is: The Kumbh Mela held at Nashik and Trimbakeshwar in Maharashtra, timed to Jupiter’s entry into Leo, the Simha rashi from which the name comes.
    2. The cycle: It recurs roughly every twelve years at each site, so a State government gets one preparation window in a generation.
    3. The four Kumbh sites: Prayagraj at the Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati confluence, Haridwar on the Ganga, Ujjain on the Shipra, and Nashik on the Godavari.
    4. Its heritage status: The Kumbh Mela was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2017.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2015, GS1, 12 marks] The states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand reaching the limits of their ecological carrying capacity due to tourism. Critically evaluate.”

  • Ex-officials flag concerns over Census data quality, potential NPR, NRC link

    Why in the News

    Two administrative decisions on Census 2027 have drawn objections from former Census officials. The Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India (RG&CCI) notified 40 questions for the Population Enumeration phase on 14 August 2026, several of which mirror the rehearsal form of the National Population Register (NPR) used in 2019. The RG&CCI then advanced the Population Enumeration phase in the poll bound States of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Goa on 5 September, while deferring it in violence hit Manipur. The objection is that the two decisions together degrade data quality and revive a link between the Census, the NPR and a National Register of Citizens (NRC). Section 15 of the Census Act, 1948 bars that use, and the 1951 Census is the precedent showing it happened anyway.

    What is the National Population Register?

    1. A register of residents: The NPR records persons residing in a local area, and it is generated under the Citizenship Act, with its data intended to be published.
    2. Its current scale: It was first created in 2011, updated in 2015, and already holds a family wise database of 119 crore residents.
    3. Its stalled status: It was to be updated alongside the first phase of the now scrapped Census 2021 and has been held back after opposition from political parties and civil society groups.

    What has changed in the Census 2027 design?

    1. The question set has grown: 40 questions were notified on 14 August 2026 for the Population Enumeration phase.
    2. The new fields are identity fields: They include particulars of a person’s parents including their names, religion, place of birth, Aadhaar, mobile phone number, voter identity and driving licence details.
    3. The resemblance is to a different exercise: Those additions mirror the questions asked in the 2019 rehearsal form of the NPR rather than anything in the previous Census schedule.
    4. The sequence has been reordered: Population Enumeration has been advanced in four poll bound States and deferred in Manipur, breaking the simultaneity a national headcount normally runs on.

    Why do former officials say the data quality will suffer?

    1. Migrants fall between two counts: Counting four States ahead of the rest of the country could lead to under enumeration of migrant workers, particularly those from Uttar Pradesh, since a person counted nowhere at the time of enumeration is not counted at all.
    2. Some questions serve no statistical purpose: Details relating to identity documents and vaccination history are already held in administrative databases, and it is not clear what statistical purpose their collection in a Census would serve.
    3. The link remains speculative rather than stated: A former Deputy Registrar General of India has stressed that any link between the Census and population registration activities remains speculative, while noting that the information now sought resembles NPR data.

    What separates the two exercises in law?

    1. The confidentiality bar: Section 15 of the Census Act, 1948 provides that records of the Census are not open to inspection nor admissible in evidence, and Census data can be used only for statistical purposes.
    2. Different statutes, different outputs: The NPR is generated under citizenship law and its data is meant to be published, which is the opposite disclosure rule from the one governing the Census.
    3. The 2019 practice went the other way: The update of the NRC in Assam in 2019 was not based on NPR data and required a separate data collection exercise of its own.

    What does the 1951 precedent actually show?

    1. The register was copied from the Census: The NRC was prepared across the country in 1951 by transcribing important Census data from the Census slips, using the same symbols and abbreviations.
    2. The two records were reconciled against each other: Missing NRC entries were copied from Census slips and missing Census slips were recreated from NRC entries under a special reconciliation exercise.
    3. It was designed as an administrative tool: The 1951 Census report for Assam, Manipur and Tripura records the register as a Census and administrative instrument rather than a citizenship verification exercise, intended to be maintained permanently and updated by village officials.
    4. It was never completed nationally: A countrywide NRC was never published for unspecified reasons, except in undivided Assam, which then also included Manipur and Tripura.

    Challenges to Census 2027

    1. A staggered count breaks comparability: Population figures collected at different reference moments cannot be compared across States without adjustment, and every downstream allocation rests on that comparison. Eg. Advancing enumeration in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Goa places four States on a different reference point from the rest of the country.
      The Fix: Publish the reference date used for each State alongside the provisional totals, and state the adjustment method before the figures enter any allocation formula.
    2. Identity questions depress response quality: Asking for document numbers in a count that promises confidentiality invites non response and misreporting from precisely the groups most likely to be undercounted. Eg. The 2019 NPR rehearsal form, which the new questions resemble, drew organised opposition on exactly this ground.
      The Fix: Make the identity document fields optional and record the non response rate for each, so the degradation is measured rather than hidden inside the totals.
    3. Confidentiality is asserted but not enforceable by the respondent: Section 15 bars inspection and evidentiary use of Census records, and offers the person counted no remedy where the bar is crossed. Eg. The 1951 register was built by copying Census slips despite the same statutory bar being in force.
      The Fix: Provide a statutory penalty for onward transfer of individual Census records to any other register, enforceable on complaint rather than only at the department’s discretion.
    4. Enumeration timing collides with the electoral calendar: Running a household level count in poll bound States places enumerators and electoral officials in the same households in the same season, which invites conflation of two separate exercises. Eg. Uttarakhand is simultaneously running a Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls with a final roll due in October.
      The Fix: Separate the enumeration window from the notified election period by a fixed statutory interval, on the model of the silence period in electoral law.

    Conclusion

    The objection is not that a register is being built, but that the instrument being used promises confidentiality and the instrument it resembles promises publication. That precedent shows the two can be merged in practice with the statutory bar formally intact, and nothing in the present design forecloses that. The concrete markers to watch are whether the identity document fields survive to the final schedule, and whether the four advanced States are enumerated against a stated reference date the rest of the country can be compared to.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2009] Consider the following statements : 1. Between Census 1951 and Census 2001, the density of the population of India has increased more than three times. 2. Between Census 1951 and Census 2001, the annual growth rate (exponential) of the population of India has doubled. Which of the statements given abova is/are correct ? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2 ANSWER: (d)”

  • Are nicotine pouches beyond the law?

    Why in the News

    A study led by the ICMR-National Institute of Cancer Prevention and Research has found that nicotine pouches are reaching Indian cities through online platforms, hookah shops and gig delivery services. The study follows a World Health Organization (WHO) warning issued in May 2026 on the dangers these products carry. No Indian statute clearly governs them. The two laws written for tobacco and for vaping each exclude the product for a different reason, and its status under the drugs law and the food law is contested. The gap is not a drafting accident, since the executive already holds the power to restrict a product’s import and sale on health grounds.

    What is a nicotine pouch?

    1. The product: A nicotine pouch is a small, tobacco-free sack shaped like a tea bag, containing nicotine, flavourings and plant-based fibres.
    2. How it is used: The user places the pouch between the lip and the gum for up to an hour. Nicotine is absorbed directly into the bloodstream.
    3. What distinguishes it: There is no smoke, no vapour and no spitting. That absence is what keeps it outside the definitions written for cigarettes and for electronic cigarettes.

    Does the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003 cover nicotine pouches?

    1. What the Act governs: The Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003 (COTPA) regulates the marketing, advertising and sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products.
    2. The definitional limit: The Act’s definition of tobacco products does not extend to every product containing nicotine. A legislature intending to cover every extract of the tobacco plant could have said so.
    3. Strict construction applies: Restrictions on the freedom of trade and commerce are construed strictly. Nicotine pouches are not among the products listed in the Act, so they fall outside it.

    Is a nicotine pouch a drug under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940?

    1. Nicotine is unscheduled: Nicotine is not listed as a drug in any schedule of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940.
    2. Some nicotine products are approved as drugs: Nicotine patches and gums have been approved as drugs by the Drug Controller General of India for therapeutic use in treating nicotine addiction.
    3. The Schedule K exemption cuts both ways: Schedule K under the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945 lists gums and lozenges and exempts them from licensing and prescription requirements where they contain less than 2 mg of nicotine. An exemption for some nicotine products implies that the rest were meant to be regulated.
    4. The counter-reading: A pouch makes no therapeutic claim and does not purport to treat addiction. It functions as a substitute for a cigarette, which places it outside the character of a drug.

    Why does the ban on vapes not reach nicotine pouches?

    1. What the vaping law does: The Prohibition of Electronic Cigarettes Act, 2019 (PECA) bans the import and sale of vapes.
    2. Its enactment carries an implication: A separate statute would not have been needed had vapes been drugs, since the government could then have regulated them or refused licences under the drugs law. The enactment indicates that the drugs law did not give adequate power to ban them.
    3. The product does not fit the definition: A nicotine pouch contains no electronic device and produces neither smoke nor vapour, so the 2019 Act does not reach it.

    Could a nicotine pouch be treated as food?

    1. The statutory definition is wide: The Prevention of Food Adulteration Act and the Food Safety and Standards Act define food as any processed, partially processed or unprocessed substance intended for human consumption.
    2. Courts have read it widely: Rulings on supari and chewing tobacco establish that the definition has a very wide amplitude and covers items that are chewed rather than swallowed.
    3. The consequence: On that reading a nicotine pouch falls within the definition of food, which would bring it under the food safety regime rather than the tobacco or drugs regime.

    What governs the import of nicotine pouches?

    1. Two statutes supply the power: The Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act, 1992 empowers the Central government to prohibit, restrict or regulate imports. Section 11 of the Customs Act, 1962 allows the government to prohibit goods wholly or partly by notification, on grounds that include the protection of human, animal or plant life.
    2. Who administers it: The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) administers the trade statute and publishes the ITC-HS classification (the Indian Trade Clarification code list, which records whether a good is free, restricted or banned).
    3. A new customs sub-category exists: After the World Customs Organization updated the Harmonized System, code 2404 91 30 was introduced for tobacco-free single-use oral nicotine pouches and 2404 91 90 for other oral nicotine products not meant for therapeutic use. These replaced a residual category for other manufactured tobacco substitutes.
    4. The medicament codes do not apply: Codes for medicaments apply only where a product is strictly a cessation aid, which a pouch is not.
    5. The status is “restricted”, not free and not banned: Goods under 2404 91 30 cannot be cleared merely on payment of duty, and they are not prohibited outright as e-cigarettes are. They require a specific licence or permission, and the DGFT cross-references the health and other ministries before deciding.

    Can nicotine pouches be sold at duty-free shops?

    1. They are on sale now: Nicotine pouches are currently available at a few duty-free stores at Indian airports.
    2. The stores are licensed under Indian law: Duty-free stores are licensed under Section 58 of the Customs Act, 1962 and cannot claim to sit entirely outside Indian law.
    3. What the Calcutta High Court actually held: In Flemingo Duty Free Shop Pvt. Ltd. v. Shri Kaushik Bhattacharya (2024), the Court held that a duty-free store did not “import” goods into India. It was deemed located outside India for the purposes of the Customs Act, so legal metrology labelling requirements did not apply to it.
    4. The holding is narrow: Reading it as excluding all Indian law would leave no court and no police station with jurisdiction over a crime committed inside such a store.
    5. The permitted list does not include them: Cigarettes, alcohol, jewellery, watches, food and small electronic items are permitted at duty-free shops. A nicotine pouch qualifies only if it is treated as food, and its restricted customs classification makes an import licence unlikely to have been granted.

    Challenges to regulating nicotine pouches in India

    1. The sales channel sits outside every enforcement design: Tobacco control law assumes a physical shop with a visible point of sale, so an online order routed through a delivery platform meets no check. Eg. The draft Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Amendment) Bill, 2020 proposed banning online sale of tobacco products and has never been enacted.
      The Fix: Place the compliance duty on the delivery platform and the payment gateway, so liability attaches where the transaction is actually recorded.
    2. Youth uptake runs ahead of regulation: Flavoured oral nicotine is marketed as a lifestyle product rather than a tobacco product, which removes the stigma that deters first use. Eg. The Global Youth Tobacco Survey conducted in India in 2019 found that 8.5 per cent of students aged 13 to 15 used tobacco in some form.
      The Fix: Prohibit characterising flavours in oral nicotine products, which is the single measure that has cut youth initiation wherever it has been applied.
    3. State action produces a patchwork rather than a rule: Food safety commissioners issue prohibition orders that lapse and must be renewed, so the legal position differs by State and by year. Eg. State bans on gutkha and pan masala are issued under Section 30(2)(a) of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and are renewed one year at a time.
      The Fix: Notify a national product standard through the food safety regulator, so the position holds across States without annual renewal.
    4. A restricted classification is not self-enforcing: Goods requiring a licence still enter through courier consignments and passenger baggage, where the volume of parcels exceeds inspection capacity. Eg. Customs seizures of e-cigarettes at Indian airports have continued in every year since the 2019 ban.
      The Fix: Add the oral nicotine codes to the risk-management system used for courier and baggage screening, so consignments are flagged automatically rather than by sampling.
    5. Health evidence is thin at the point where a decision is needed: Long-term data on the cardiovascular and oral effects of tobacco-free nicotine is limited, which lets manufacturers argue harm reduction against combustible tobacco. Eg. The current Indian evidence base rests on an institute-led study of market availability rather than on outcome data.
      The Fix: Commission a national surveillance study on oral nicotine use and its health outcomes, with its results fixed as the trigger for regulatory review.

    Conclusion

    The legal position is intricate and the remedy is not. The executive already holds the power to prohibit import and sale on health grounds, and a notification exercising it would take minutes to issue. The cost of not issuing it is known from the vaping episode: demand settles first, the ban arrives after, and smuggling replaces the legal market it was meant to close. The question before the government is therefore about timing, not about which statute applies.

    Back2Basics

    1. What it is: The ICMR-National Institute of Cancer Prevention and Research is an institute of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the country’s apex body for biomedical research, functioning under the Department of Health Research.
    2. Where it is: It is located at Noida in Uttar Pradesh.
    3. Earlier name: It functioned as the Institute of Cytology and Preventive Oncology before being renamed in 2016.
    4. Mandate: It works on cancer prevention, early detection and population screening, and carries a substantial tobacco control research programme.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2023] With reference to India, consider the following pairs: Action: The Act under which it is covered 1. Unauthorized wearing of police or military uniforms : The Official Secrets Act, 1923 2. Knowingly misleading or otherwise interfering with a police officer or military officer when engaged in their duties : The Indian Evidence Act, 1872 3. Celebratory gunfire which can endanger the personal safety of others : The Arms (Amendment) Act, 2019 How many of the above pairs are correctly matched? (a) Only one (b) Only two (c) All three (d) None ANSWER: (b)”

  • Failing at ABC

    Why in the News

    An investigation across Tamil Nadu and Puducherry into the outsourced Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme, under which local bodies contract organisations to sterilise and vaccinate community dogs, records starved animals, botched mass surgeries, broken vaccine cold chains and fabricated organ counts.

    What do the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023 require?

    1. Humane capture and return to the same place: Capture with nets, feeder outreach before capture, and geotagging of both capture and release at the same location.
    2. Surgical and shelter standards: Closed circuit cameras in the operation theatre, pre-operative and post-operative care, clean and spacious kennels, food twice a day and water at all times.
    3. Verification tied to billing: Organ inspection committees are to be constituted to count organs against billing claims.
    4. Disposal after the count: Organs are to be destroyed immediately by deep burial or incineration.

    What did the investigation find at the centres?

    1. Oulgaret, Puducherry: An internal municipal dossier recorded 50 emaciated dogs released from an ABC centre in late 2025, 20 dog deaths and 50 complaints against the veterinarian. The animals were released hastily just before an inspection, with sutures falling apart.
    2. Velankanni, Nagapattinam district: On 23 July dogs were found alive with loose sutures and no post-operative care, and carcasses were found in garbage with bloody sutures and with wires and ropes around their necks, both banned in the catching process. The District Animal Welfare Officer’s report recorded 70 dogs, 64 males and six females, sterilised in three days by two veterinarians.
    3. Mannargudi, Tiruvarur district: On 2 September a female dog was found alive with its intestines spilling out after sterilisation at the centre there.
    4. Pollachi: At a board-run centre the post-operative care unit sits 2 km away from the surgery centre, and a female dog died of evisceration after surgery.
    5. Relocation instead of return: Dogs picked up for sterilisation are extensively relocated in violation of the Rules, and a healthy dog returned to its own locality is the community’s only real-time audit of the money spent.

    Why do the surgeries fail?

    1. Suturing is rushed: The distance between two suture bites should be under half a centimetre, which takes time. Centres press young veterinarians to complete more surgeries instead.
    2. Pain relief is skipped to cut cost: Multi-modal analgesia is omitted, so the animal licks the surgical site and opens the sutures.
    3. Suture material is reused: Leftover material causes surgical site infections.
    4. The faster male technique is the unsuitable one: The on-scrotal method leaves gaps between sutures for fluid drainage and raises infection risk on unhygienic shelter floors. A veterinarian left an organisation that insisted on more on-scrotal procedures.

    How does the payment design create the incentive?

    1. The rate is fixed per dog: Rs 1,650 is allocated per dog, including Rs 450 for sterilisation and vaccination and Rs 200 for catching and release.
    2. Payment follows projected numbers, not outcomes: Local bodies reward claimed counts rather than verified results, which turns sterilisation into assembly-line work at scale.
    3. Catchers are paid per catch: Pups, lactating dogs, pregnant dogs and already sterilised dogs are picked up to raise the count.
    4. Ethical care is affordable and skipped anyway: Factoring in economies of scale, a centre can make about Rs 66,000 in profit while still meeting ethical standards of care.

    What is the state of verification?

    1. Bills clear on the contractor’s own evidence: Payment rests on the organisation’s claims, photographs of surgery, photographs of dogs and occasional organ counts by municipal sanitation officers.
    2. The organ count is gamed: A bucket of organs stored at the Oulgaret centre was transported to Neyveli township in Cuddalore district in 2025 to supply an organ counting committee inspection, with the same veterinarian performing surgeries at Neyveli.
    3. The committees arrive after the money: In Tiruppur the organ counting committee was constituted only after more than 9,000 surgeries had been billed.
    4. The audit questions went unanswered: The Director of Municipal Administration did not answer whether time-tagged photographs, videos of the organ count and destruction of organs were audited for each batch of sterilisation bills, or what the targets were.
    5. The corrective is administrative and recent: Corporations have withheld payment on bills raised over the last three months, and a member of the State Monitoring Committee has written to the Municipal Administration Department to withhold bills and constitute panels. Activists have asked instead that community animals be brought under an animal management framework of the Animal Husbandry Department.

    Why does blacklisting fail to remove a contractor?

    1. Recognition is scarce and contracting is not: Only six organisations hold recognition for ABC procedures in the State, against about 15 contractor organisations operating in the space.
    2. A blacklisted operator is re-engaged elsewhere: Pranimitran’s contract was terminated by the Hosur Corporation over animal mutilation, botched surgeries and non-disclosure, and it was blacklisted by the Animal Welfare Board of India. The Tiruppur Corporation engaged it anyway, stating that no replacement contractor could be found.
    3. Others continue in place: Jeeva Karunyam of Nagercoil and Rajeshwari Goshala of Tirunelveli continue to work for their local bodies, and two First Information Reports were filed against International Peace Trust at Avadi in Chennai.
    4. A criminal case does not interrupt a contract: A First Information Report was filed against Pranimitran over the death of two pups in Tiruppur, and in April 2026 an already sterilised six-year-old dog with a notched ear was found anaesthetised at its centre.

    What does the broken cold chain mean for rabies control?

    1. Refrigeration is missing: A large majority of centres lack refrigerators capable of holding anti-rabies vaccine at 2 degrees Celsius.
    2. Vaccination is simply skipped: A doctor who worked at the Hosur centre states that no vaccines were administered across an average of 650 surgeries a month, with power cuts, no generator and no fresh vaccine batches supplied.
    3. Responsibility is contested: The organisation’s position is that the cold chain is supplied and inspected by the Corporation, and that ineffective vaccines would have produced a rabies outbreak.
    4. Half the programme then disappears: Sterilisation without a viable vaccine delivers population control alone, and leaves the rabies control purpose of the programme unmet.

    Conclusion

    The programme’s failure is not a supervision gap that better inspection would close. Payment attaches to a number the contractor supplies, the committee that would verify the number is constituted late or supplied with borrowed evidence, and the certificate that would screen the contractor has been made optional. Blacklisting is therefore a label rather than a disqualification, and a contractor removed in one district is hired in the next. Until money moves against a verified sterilisation and a verified vaccination rather than against a claimed count, no participant in the chain carries a cost for the outcome.

    Back2Basics: Animal Welfare Board of India

    1. Statutory origin: Established in 1962 under Section 4 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, as the first national animal welfare body of its kind.
    2. Function: It advises the Government of India on animal welfare laws and on measures to prevent unnecessary pain to animals, and its recommendations are advisory.
    3. Role in this programme: It issues Project Recognition Certificates to organisations conducting Animal Birth Control work, and can blacklist an organisation for violations.
    4. Administrative location: It works under the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, and its headquarters moved from Chennai to Ballabhgarh in Haryana.

    [2014] Consider the following statements:

    1. Animal Welfare Board of India is established under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.

    2. National Tiger Conservation Authority is a statutory body.

    3. National Ganga River Basin Authority is chaired by the Prime Minister.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 and 3 only

    (c) 2 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3

  • The political cost of UCT schemes

    Why in the News

    Unconditional cash transfer schemes aimed at women have become a standard electoral instrument in India since 2020, and the argument now is that they carry a political cost their designers cannot remove.

    What is an unconditional cash transfer scheme?

    1. Cash paid without a behavioural condition: The transfer reaches an identified beneficiary on eligibility alone, with no requirement to enrol a child, attend a clinic or perform work.
    2. The named State schemes: Kalaignar Magalir Urimai Thittam in Tamil Nadu, Lakshmir Bhandar in West Bengal and Gruha Lakshmi Yojana in Karnataka are the principal instances.
    3. The stated welfare purpose: The schemes provide financial support to women, and partially advance Sustainable Development Goal 5.4 (recognition and valuation of women’s unpaid domestic and care work).

    Why can beneficiary targeting not be made accurate?

    1. Incomes are not observable: Governments cannot directly observe the incomes of most workers in the informal sector.
    2. Proxies stand in for income: Eligibility is inferred from land ownership, electricity consumption or household assets.
    3. Both errors follow from the proxy: Inclusion errors send benefits to ineligible households. Exclusion errors leave eligible households out.

    What does the Kalaignar Magalir Urimai Thittam experience show?

    1. The promise was universal: Rs 1,000 a month was promised to all women-headed households before the 2021 election.
    2. The launch was restricted: Fiscal constraints produced eligibility limits on income, land ownership and other criteria at launch in September 2023, covering about 1.13 crore women.
    3. Expansion followed complaints, not review: Another 16.94 lakh beneficiaries were added in December 2025 after widespread complaints from women who believed they met the criteria. The scheme cost Rs 13,807 crore in 2025-26.
    4. The expansion did not settle the grievance: Women who considered themselves unfairly excluded became more aggrieved when beneficiaries received an advance of three months’ entitlement along with a special summer relief payment.

    Why does a perceived error cost as much as a real one?

    1. Belief drives grievance, not eligibility: An individual who fails the official criteria may still believe the treatment was unfair, and votes on that belief.
    2. Qualifying households attract resentment: A household that legally qualifies may be regarded as undeserving where it appears relatively affluent.
    3. The two logics pull in opposite directions: Economics favours targeting so that scarce public resources reach those most in need. Politics rewards broader inclusion, because voters weigh benefits they believe were unfairly denied to them.
    4. Small shifts decide outcomes: The precise electoral impact cannot be measured, and modest shifts in voter preference decide closely contested constituencies.

    What is the fiscal case against unconditional transfers?

    1. The national bill: States are expected to spend about $18 billion on unconditional cash transfers in 2025-26, according to the latest Economic Survey.
    2. The money is switched rather than raised: Financing requires expenditure switching or a larger fiscal deficit.
    3. Productive spending is displaced: Resources available for employment generation and self-employment programmes fall.
    4. Withdrawal is not an option once dependence sets in: Parties escalate the amount instead of ending the transfer, which produces competitive welfarism.

    Does a conditional design perform better?

    1. The benefit is tied to an outcome: Conditional and incentive-linked transfers link payment to a socially desirable behaviour, so the money buys a developmental gain alongside relief.
    2. Self-selection replaces verification: Participation in Tamil Nadu’s Midday Meal Scheme depends on school enrolment, so beneficiaries select themselves and grievances fall.
    3. The political cost falls with the targeting burden: A programme tied to education or another desirable behaviour needs no proxy means test, so it generates no perceived exclusion error.

    Challenges to unconditional cash transfers

    1. There is no current income record to target on: Welfare lists rest on a deprivation ranking that ages faster than household circumstances change. Eg. The Socio-Economic and Caste Census of 2011 remains the base for several central and State beneficiary lists.
      The Fix: Re-run the deprivation survey on a fixed cycle and publish the ranking rules, so exclusion can be contested against a stated test.
    2. Exclusion falls hardest on those without documents: Authentication failure removes a household that is eligible on every substantive criterion. Eg. Aadhaar authentication failures in ration distribution in Jharkhand’s Simdega district were linked to a starvation death in 2017.
      The Fix: Mandate an offline exception route at every disbursement point, with the exception count published monthly.
    3. The transfer amount is fixed in nominal terms and erodes: Inflation cuts the real value of a flat monthly figure that no rule revises. Eg. The maternity benefit under the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana has stayed at Rs 5,000 since 2017.
      The Fix: Index the transfer to the consumer price index with an automatic annual revision.
    4. Cash cannot substitute for a service that does not exist: A transfer lets a household buy a service only where a provider is present. Eg. A cash benefit cannot purchase schooling or primary care in a block that has neither a functioning school nor a health centre.
      The Fix: Pair every new transfer with a published service-availability audit for the districts it covers.

    Conclusion

    Targeting error is not an implementation defect in an unconditional cash transfer. It is a property of paying cash on an inferred income in an economy where income cannot be observed. The design therefore buys relief at a political price the government cannot negotiate down, and raising the amount does not buy it down either. The alternative on offer is not universality but conditionality: tie the payment to a behaviour the household chooses, and the household sorts itself.

    Cash Transfer Based Welfare in India

    1. About: Benefit is paid in cash directly into a beneficiary’s bank account in place of a subsidised good, a price support or an in-kind entitlement.
    2. The delivery rails: The Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile combination supplies the account, the identity and the confirmation, and the Public Financial Management System routes the payment.
    3. Where it began at scale: Cooking gas subsidy transfer under the PAHAL scheme in 2014-15 was the first large national rollout.
    4. Present spread: Direct Benefit Transfer now runs across more than 300 central schemes in addition to State transfers.

    Government Initiatives for Cash Transfer Based Welfare

    1. Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi: Rs 6,000 a year in three instalments to landholding farmer families, run by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare.
    2. National Social Assistance Programme: Old age, widow and disability pensions to below poverty line households, run by the Ministry of Rural Development.
    3. Direct Benefit Transfer Mission: Housed in the Cabinet Secretariat, it coordinates transfer implementation across ministries and maintains the scheme-wise public dashboard.

    [2022, GS2, 10 marks] Reforming the government delivery system through the Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme is a progressive step, but it has its limitations too. Comment.

  • Centre’s rationale for not using OBC lists for caste enumeration is flawed, say associations

    Centre’s rationale for not using OBC lists for caste enumeration is flawed, say associations

    Why in the News

    Associations representing Other Backward Classes (OBC) have rejected the Union government’s stated reason for not using the Central and State OBC lists in the caste enumeration component of the 2027 Census. The government’s position is that those lists record classes rather than castes, so caste names cannot be drawn and codified from them. Castes other than the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes will instead be recorded through an open column, in which the enumerator writes down what the respondent states. The associations argue that a government which recognises these communities as OBCs for reservation cannot disregard their caste identities when it collects population data. What is contested is whether an enumeration run without a pre-coded caste frame can produce a usable OBC population figure at all.

    How would the two methods of enumeration differ?

    1. The open column method: Castes other than the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes are recorded as stated by the respondent, without a pre-coded list of caste names for the enumerator to select from.
    2. The list based alternative: Caste names would have been drawn from the Central and State OBC lists and codified in advance, so responses map onto a fixed set of entries.
    3. Where the lists already exist: The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes are enumerated against notified lists, which is the precedent the associations point to.

    What is the government’s reason, and how do the associations answer it?

    1. The stated rationale: The OBC lists identify backward classes rather than castes, so caste names cannot be lifted from them for enumeration.
    2. The associations’ core objection: The All India OBC Students’ Association (AIOBCSA) calls the class and caste distinction artificial, arguing that a government recognising these communities as OBCs for reservation and other affirmative action cannot then disregard their caste identities when collecting population data.
    3. Fix the lists rather than drop them: The associations say that if the existing lists are inadequate or carry inconsistencies for enumeration, the government should use experts to draw and rationalise the caste names from them, not “drop them altogether”.
    4. Administrative records already do both: The AIOBCSA points out that certificates and official records routinely identify communities by their specific social and caste identities, and that even Economically Weaker Section certificates identify the beneficiary through prescribed social or category criteria. Administrative classification and social identity therefore coexist in practice.
    5. A charge of bad faith: The OBC Public Representatives Forum said the justification adds to the perception that the government agreed to enumerate castes with no real intention of doing it properly.

    Why do the associations link this to the EWS estimate?

    1. The estimate behind EWS: When the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) quota was introduced, the government worked with an estimate that the population outside the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and OBCs was about 35 to 40 percent.
    2. What a rigorous count would do to it: The Backwards Classes Intellectual Forum argues that a scientific enumeration of OBC populations would show that estimate to be an overestimation.
    3. The alleged motive: The same body argues that the refusal to codify existing caste names and count caste group populations, as is done for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, is intended to cover up the basis on which EWS reservation was justified.

    Why has the OBC count been the core of the caste Census demand?

    1. The figure has never been counted: The OBC population across the country has only ever been estimated in India, based on the caste Census data of 1931.
    2. The demand was built on that gap: Enumerating the OBC population has historically been the principal argument driving the demand for a caste Census.
    3. The method is what is now questioned: Senior Opposition leaders have questioned the utility of the open column methodology for enumerating every caste other than the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.

    Challenges to caste enumeration through an open column

    1. Free text responses multiply into unusable entries: A column with no pre-coded frame collects spellings, surnames, sub castes and clan names as separate answers, and classifying them afterwards becomes a second exercise larger than the count. Eg. The Socio Economic and Caste Census, 2011 returned roughly 46 lakh distinct caste and related entries, and its caste data was never released.
      The Fix: Publish a codified caste directory built from the Central and State lists and State commission reports before enumeration, and let the open column carry only the entries that directory does not hold.
    2. No single classification governs across States: Central and State OBC lists differ, so the same caste name can carry backward class status in one State and not in another or at the Centre. Eg. Jats were added to the Central OBC list in 2014 and the inclusion was set aside by the Supreme Court in Ram Singh versus Union of India (2015), while several States continue to list them.
      The Fix: Record the State of enumeration against each caste entry, so the count can be read against the list actually applicable to that respondent.
    3. Data collected without a publication commitment invites contest: A count whose tables and methodology are not released cannot settle any claim, and every group then disputes its own number. Eg. Bihar’s caste survey of 2023 was challenged in court, and several communities publicly disputed the figures recorded for them.
      The Fix: Fix a statutory deadline for publishing the caste tables together with the methodology note.
    4. Self declaration can be strategic: Where recognition carries reservation benefits, the answer given to an enumerator responds to the benefit rather than to the record. Eg. Sections of the Maratha community in Maharashtra have pressed for recognition as Kunbi in official records in order to access OBC reservation.
      The Fix: Cross check declared entries against existing caste certificate records at the tabulation stage rather than at the point of enumeration.

    Conclusion

    The same administration recognises these communities by caste for the purpose of reservation and declines to name them by caste for the purpose of counting. That is the contradiction the associations have put on the record, and no procedural reason offered so far reconciles the two positions. The decision also determines whether the coming enumeration produces a number that can be used in policy or one that has to be reclassified before anyone can read it. What to watch is whether a codified caste directory is issued to enumerators before fieldwork begins.

    Back2Basics: Economically Weaker Section reservation

    1. What it is: A 10 percent reservation in government jobs and educational institutions for economically weaker sections outside the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes.
    2. Its constitutional basis: It was introduced by the Constitution (One Hundred and Third Amendment) Act, 2019, inserting Articles 15(6) and 16(6).
    3. How eligibility is set: Eligibility rests on income and asset criteria notified by the government, not on social or educational backwardness.
    4. Its judicial status: The Supreme Court upheld the amendment in Janhit Abhiyan versus Union of India (2022) by a majority of three to two.

    [2022, GS2, 10 marks] Discuss the role of the National Commission for Backward Classes in the wake of its transformation from a statutory body to a constitutional body.