Description:
India's surge in growth and rapid
expansion in public spending in the past decade has created
new possibilities for its social protection system. The
growing importance of social protection (SP) is reflected in
the Government of India (GoI) common minimum program and
eleventh five year plan which commit to institutionalization
of programs as legal rights (as in the case of public works,
through the national rural employment guarantee act),
continued up-scaling of interventions (e.g., social pensions
and midday meals), and proposals to expand new types of SP
interventions to the large unorganized sector (e.g., social
security). The report draws on existing and new data
sources,. including analysis of: (i) administrative data;
(ii) several rounds of the National Sample Survey (NSS)
data; (iii) a social protection survey (SPS) undertaken for
this report in 2006 in rural areas of Orissa, Madhya
Pradesh, and Karnataka; (iv) dedicated surveys on social
pensions in Karnataka (KSPS) and Rajasthan (RSPS) in 2005
and 2006 respectively; and (v) a living standards survey
conducted in Jharkhand in 2005 (JLSS). In addition, the
report incorporates a rich body of secondary sources on SP
program performance and impact by national researchers and
government agencies.