Government Policies and Interventions

WASH means water, sanitation and hygiene taken together. Synchronisation means choosing the target group by the outcome sought.

Where the statement holds

Child stunting: Reach children under five through anganwadis, with Poshan Abhiyaan.

Attendance of girls: Reach school toilets with water and disposal, under Swachh Vidyalaya.

Water borne disease: Reach arsenic affected Bihar and fluoride affected Rajasthan first.

Occupational safety: Reach sanitation workers through mechanised cleaning under NAMASTE.

Where it needs qualification

Some outcomes need everyone: Open defecation free status fails if one household is left out.

Saturation is the design: Jal Jeevan Mission targets every rural household, not a chosen segment.

Segmentation can exclude: Slum households without tenure fall outside individual toilet criteria.

Outcomes are slow to measure: So targets drift back to toilets built and taps laid.

Segmentation should decide sequence and design. Coverage must still be universal. The claim holds for outcomes tied to one group. It fails where the whole village must change.

Decode

Examine a statement. It must be tested, not only illustrated.

Implicit demand

Sanitation has both targeted and universal outcomes. The claim fits only the first.

Architecture

Define the terms → where the claim holds → where it needs qualification → verdict.

Articulation

Anchor: Poshan Abhiyaan, Swachh Vidyalaya, NAMASTE, Jal Jeevan Mission, arsenic and fluoride belts. Money line: segmentation decides sequence, while coverage stays universal.

The schemes

Swachh Bharat Mission, 2014 worked on toilet coverage and open defecation free status.

The second phase moved to ODF Plus, which adds solid and liquid waste management.

Jal Jeevan Mission, 2019 aims at a functional tap connection for every rural household.

Sustainable Development Goal 6 covers water and sanitation for all by 2030.

Swachh Vidyalaya addressed toilets in schools, with separate facilities for girls.

The National Water Quality Mission targets habitations affected by arsenic and fluoride.

Segments worth naming

Children under five, where repeated diarrhoea contributes to stunting and poor school readiness.

Adolescent girls, for whom menstrual hygiene and a private school toilet decide attendance.

Women, who bear the time cost of fetching water where there is no household tap.

Sanitation workers, covered by the NAMASTE scheme for mechanised cleaning and safety.

Slum households without tenure, who cannot receive an individual household latrine.

Habitations with arsenic in Bihar and West Bengal, and fluoride in Rajasthan.

Tribal and hill habitations, where securing the source matters more than laying pipe.

Evidence and gaps

NFHS rounds record both sanitation access and its use, which is the honest measure.

Swachh Survekshan ranks cities and creates competition between them.

Usage surveys have repeatedly shown a gap between coverage and daily use.

Behaviour change communication is the weakest funded part of every WASH scheme.

Convergence with Poshan Abhiyaan is the route from sanitation to nutrition outcomes.

Where segmentation has limits

Sanitation carries an externality. One household still practising open defecation affects the village.

Swachh Bharat and Jal Jeevan Mission both follow a saturation model, not a targeted one.

Narrow eligibility rules exclude tenants, migrants and households without secure tenure.

Health outcomes appear after years, so annual review falls back on construction figures.

Segmentation raises administrative cost, which small gram panchayats cannot always carry.

The workable rule is universal coverage, with the weakest segment served first.

In December 2025 the Supreme Court suspended its 100 metre definition of the Aravallis, fearing it would open most of the range to mining. Competing sectors often defeat protection this way.

Illustrations of contradiction

Mining and ecology: The Environment Ministry banned new Aravalli mining leases only in December 2025, after illegal mining had erased whole hills.

Agriculture and air: Punjab's free power and assured paddy procurement keep rice dominant. Its 2009 groundwater law delays transplanting, leaving little time to clear stubble.

Infrastructure and forests: The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023 exempted border land for strategic projects, and the Great Nicobar project will clear rainforest.

Energy and biodiversity: Coal mining in Hasdeo Arand continues despite its dense forest and elephant corridors.

Regulation and ease of business: The draft Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) notification of 2020 proposed clearances after construction.

Protection fails less from weak laws than from sectors pulling against each other. Cumulative impact assessment and an independent regulator would make environment a shared goal.

Decode

Comment with illustrations. The illustrations carry the marks, so each point must show two sectors pulling in opposite directions.

Implicit demand

The examiner wants contradictions within government, not just between industry and activists. Pairing sectors in each label makes that visible.

Architecture

A current hook of the Aravalli case → five paired contradictions → verdict with an institutional remedy.

Articulation

Anchor: the Aravalli order of December 2025, Punjab's groundwater law of 2009, the Forest Conservation Amendment Act 2023, Great Nicobar, Hasdeo Arand, draft EIA 2020. Money line: protection fails less from weak laws than from sectors pulling against each other.

More illustrations

Fertiliser subsidy favours urea, which distorts nutrient balance and degrades soil, while soil health cards urge balanced use.

Hydropower and highway projects in fragile Himalayan valleys, such as the Char Dham road, sit uneasily with disaster risk after events like the Joshimath subsidence of 2023.

The Coastal Regulation Zone notification of 2019 relaxed limits on construction near the coast, even as sea level rise increases risk.

Sand mining supports construction and state revenue, but it lowers riverbeds and damages bridges and aquifers.

Urban expansion over lakes and floodplains in cities such as Bengaluru and Chennai conflicts with flood control.

The Aravalli case

On 20 November 2025, the Supreme Court accepted a definition of Aravalli hills as landforms rising 100 metres above the surrounding terrain.

Critics argued that most of the range falls below that height, so the definition would remove protection from large areas.

On 24 December 2025, the Environment Ministry barred new mining leases across the Aravallis.

On 29 December 2025, a bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant put the definition in abeyance and ordered a fresh expert review.

Ways to reconcile sectors

Strategic Environmental Assessment of policies and plans, not just individual projects.

An independent environment regulator, as the Supreme Court suggested in Lafarge Umiam Mining (2011).

Green budgeting and natural capital accounting so that ministries see the cost of degradation.

Crop diversification incentives in Punjab and Haryana, and support for machines that manage stubble in the field.

Meaningful public hearings and consent of gram sabhas under the Forest Rights Act, 2006.

The neoliberal paradigm reduces the direct role of the state. It prefers markets, competition and delivery through lower tiers. Multi level planning means planning at several tiers, each with assigned functions, funds and staff.

Why the paradigm expects gains

Subsidiarity: A decision is taken at the lowest tier able to take it.

Better information: A district knows its needs better than a ministry does.

Lower transaction cost: Shorter approval chains cut delay and duplication.

The Indian design: Article 243ZD requires a District Planning Committee in every district.

Where it has worked

Kerala, 1996: The People's Plan moved a large share of plan funds to local bodies.

What followed: Kudumbashree, local roads and a trained planning cadre.

MGNREGA: The gram sabha selects works, so the asset matches the local need.

Why blockages remain

Functions without funds: Most states devolved subjects but kept the money and the staff.

Committees on paper: District Planning Committees exist in law and rarely plan.

Parallel bodies: Development authorities plan the same space separately.

The tension inside the premise

Planning fits the paradigm awkwardly: A market led model treats planning as facilitation, not allocation.

Saving can become shifting: Responsibility moves down while resources stay at the top.

Participation can be formal: A plan drafted by officials and read to a gram sabha is not local planning.

The frame itself changed: The Planning Commission ended in 2015, and NITI Aayog advises without plan funds.

Multi level planning does cut cost and clear blockages. It does so only where functions, funds and functionaries travel together. A neoliberal frame often devolves duty without resources. The result therefore turns on design, not on the paradigm.

Decode

Discuss a claim. Both terms must be defined before the claim can be tested.

Implicit demand

The premise is contestable. Decentralised delivery and genuine local planning are not the same thing.

Architecture

Definitions → why gains are expected → where it worked → why blockages remain → the tension → verdict.

Articulation

Anchor: Article 243ZD, the Kerala People's Plan, Kudumbashree, MGNREGA, the end of the Planning Commission. Money line: the result depends on the design and not on the paradigm.

The concepts

The neoliberal turn in India dates from 1991. It reached governance through New Public Management.

New Public Management borrows from business: outcomes, competition, contracting out and the citizen as customer.

National, state, district, block and village tiers each plan within their own sphere.

Subsidiarity is the principle that a function should sit at the lowest competent level.

The three Fs are functions, funds and functionaries. Devolution fails when only the first travels.

The Indian record

Balwantrai Mehta, 1957 proposed democratic decentralisation with the block as the unit.

Ashok Mehta, 1978 proposed the district as the first point of decentralisation.

The Dantwala Committee, 1978 examined block level planning in detail.

The Hanumantha Rao Committee, 1984 worked on district planning.

Articles 243ZD and 243ZE require District and Metropolitan Planning Committees.

The Kerala People's Plan Campaign, 1996 remains the strongest Indian example of the model.

The critique

Decentralisation without resources has been called the decentralisation of austerity.

User charges shift cost from the budget to the household, which is not a saving.

Elite capture can turn local planning into local patronage.

Centrally sponsored schemes arrive with their own design, leaving little to plan.

The Fifteenth Finance Commission tied local body grants to publishing accounts. That is a different route to accountability.

Cost effectiveness should be measured against outcomes, not against the size of the budget spent.

Direct Benefit Transfer sends a subsidy or entitlement straight into the beneficiary's bank account. It runs on the JAM combination of bank account, Aadhaar and mobile.

Why it is progressive

Leakage falls: Duplicate and ghost names are removed from the rolls.

The middleman goes: Payment no longer depends on the discretion of a local official.

Speed and reach: PM Kisan and scholarships reach accounts directly.

Proven at scale: PAHAL transferred gas subsidy to crores of households.

The limitations

Exclusion by technology: Biometric failure affects manual workers and the elderly.

An account is not access: A banking correspondent may be far, or short of cash.

Cash cannot buy what is absent: Where the market fails, in kind support still works better.

Value erodes: Amounts are rarely indexed, so inflation reduces them each year.

Weak redress: A failed transfer has no quick local remedy.

DBT has made delivery faster and cleaner. It should be judged by who is left out, not only by the money saved.

Decode

Comment on a two sided statement. Both sides must appear.

Implicit demand

Exclusion is the real criticism. Savings are the easy part of the answer.

Architecture

What DBT is → why it is progressive → the limitations → verdict.

Articulation

Anchor: the JAM combination, PAHAL, PM Kisan, biometric failure, indexation. Money line: judge it by who is left out, not only by the money saved.

The design

Direct Benefit Transfer began in 2013 and now covers hundreds of central and state schemes.

JAM stands for Jan Dhan accounts, Aadhaar and mobile connectivity.

PAHAL for cooking gas is among the largest cash transfer programmes anywhere.

Aadhaar Enabled Payment System allows withdrawal through a banking correspondent.

Wage payment under MGNREGA and most scholarships now run through this route.

The criticism

Puttaswamy, 2018 upheld Aadhaar for subsidies but barred denial for authentication failure.

Exclusion is quiet, since a person who never receives money rarely appears in any record.

Reported savings often reflect deletion of duplicates rather than improved efficiency.

Cash to the head of the household may not reach the woman who cooks.

Rural banking correspondents face cash shortages, which turns a transfer into a journey.

Where the ration shop is the only source, food in kind is safer.

The way forward

Audit exclusion, and publish the number of failed authentications by district.

Allow offline and alternate authentication where biometrics fail repeatedly.

Index transfer amounts so that their real value does not fall each year.

Strengthen the correspondent network before withdrawing an in kind channel.

Give grievance redress a statutory timeline, as service guarantee laws do.

Keep choice between cash and kind where markets are thin, as pilots have suggested.