“I asked our ration dealer for a new ration card many times, but he said he does not have the form. So, after lockdown when in 2021 the camp was held in my village, I started going there – but now I do not go anymore.”
Riya Soren is a 27-year-old woman living in Kalna block of Purba Bardhaman district, West Bengal with her elderly mother in law, husband and her two children. Working on others’ land is the the only source of income for her and her husband. She has a job card for MGNREGA but does not remember the last time she was given any work under it. The family has Antyodaya Anna Yojana cards, but the younger son has not received his card yet.
She applied for a caste certificate, Lakshmi Bhandar and Swasthya Saathi and her son’s ration card all in one go. She only received the caste certificate. She submitted her form for Lakshmi Bhandar two more times after that but did not receive it due to the Swasthya Saathi card. She went to the BDO office from where she was sent to the Panchayat office, where she was told to go to the court and separate her family members from the Swasthya Saathi card.
It seemed too much to miss more daily wages and so Riya let it so. As far as her young son’s ration card is concerned, it was not received and when she asked someone to check the status online, it was found that the application had been cancelled since there had been a difference in the spellings of the name of his father. She then submitted the form to correct the spelling in her husband’s ration card but that has not been corrected yet.
Riya is like the 60 lakh others who have visited camps set up for the West Bengal government’s flagship governance model – Duare Sarkar. Duare Sarkar is a paradigm shift from traditional public administration to an e-governance-driven service delivery mechanism, in which the government is found available at the doorsteps of citizens, “Leaving no one behind.” Duare Sarkar holds much promise for reimagining the governance system to meet the people’s aspirations by making it more accessible, accountable and responsive, as per the words on the government website. Starting from December 2020, there have been six rounds of camps and the schemes available have increased from 12 to a 21. The state government has received various accolades for this enterprise.
A poster for Duare Sarkar.
However, the ground reality remains a bit different and there are numerous like Riya, as per a survey conducted by the Right to Food and Work Network. The study was conducted with 2,500 respondents across 16 districts, and attempted to understand the workings of the camps, in terms of how many schemes were actually reaching the applicants and the time period involved in the process. It was found that most of the people visiting the camps were not first timers and were applying for the same scheme/service over and over again. While every three out of four respondents who had visited the camp applied for one or more schemes/services, only 42% had received what they had applied for.
Lakshmi Bhandar is a direct cash transfer scheme of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 for general category and SC/ST women respectively, launched in 2021. This scheme has been linked to the state’s health insurance scheme – Swathaya Saathi – and hence it was not surprising that the report points out that the maximum number of applications were made for Lakshmi Bhandar followed by Swasthya Saathi. However, this does not imply high levels of efficiency in conversion of these schemes and as per the report, 40% of those who received Lakshmi Bhandar scheme benefits did so after applying more than once.
What is being applied for and what does this imply ?
Manju Bibi, living in an urban slum in Kolkata, has applied for a Swasthya Saathi card twice but has not received it yet. With the receipt of the Swasthya Saathi application, she applied for Lakshmi Bhandar, but has not received that either. She earns some money by selling eggs in the lanes nearby and has two daughters. Her monthly income along with her husband is not more than Rs 15,000 and she says, “When they are having so many camps, everyone should get access to the benefits.”
Roshni, living a few shanties away, feels the same. She comes from a family of 20 members and has applied for Lakshmi Bhandar three times. When asked about her experience she says, “I even went to the Borough office to ask and they told me that it will come but slowly-slowly. I cannot understand how long I should wait, or should I again reapply or simply stop waiting…?”
Given the fact that implementation is slow, Duare Sarkar camps come across as a means to popularise the chief minister’s flagship schemes. By generating a demand and uptake of the same through the camps, the attempt is to prove the success of the particular scheme and in turn the government.
Apart from these newly launched schemes, the Duare Sarkar camps served as an eye-opener on the dismal performance of much older government welfare programmes. Almost 30% in the case of Khadya Saathi (a food security programme operating through the Public Distribution System that involves entitlements as per a state government scheme and the National Food Security Act 2013) and 46% in the case of caste certificate applicants, had not received their entitlements, as on the fifth round of Duara Sarkar completion. Apart from this, the trend proves rights-based provisions did not see the publicity or uptake that short-term, cash-transfer-based schemes did. Similarly, in the case of old age pension, the applicants of the earliest rounds are yet to receive anything and the process of accepting new/repeat applications has completely stopped across the state, leaving the aged abandoned. From the poster for the sixth round of the camp, MGNREGA had completely disappeared.
Democratic institutional breakdown
The report also aimed to provide an overall commentary on the prevailing situation of governance and rights-based programmes and institutions in the state.
“I do not think the camps have made much of a difference in our lives, I have had to go to the Block and Panchayat again and again, like before…the Camp is only an additional place that we have to visit,” says Rina Pal from Phulia, who would do tant (stitching work) earlier but now due to a collapse of this cottage industry, she runs a small grocery store and supports her family of four daughters. Rina had visited the very first camp held in her Panchayat Belghoria, where she applied for Swasthya Saathi and an OBC certificate. After that, she has visited each camp to apply for Swasthya Saathi and along with that the Lakshmi Bhandar scheme, but is yet to receive any benefits. She has not even been given a receipt or acknowledgement for her applications.
However, she received a phone call from the SDO office in February 2023 to visit and submit documents for the OBC certificate. She went with all her originals and photocopies including land patta and spoke to an officer who checked all her documents and said that her OBC certificate will be sent to the Panchayat office and she can collect it from there. She also checked with the BDO office for her Swasthya Saathi card but they told her that whatever will happen will happen only from the camps. Rina has also had to pay to pick up forms from the camps and many times she is told there are no forms available. She feels that many women like her are facing the same problem; many do not manage to visit the camp during the stipulated date and time and are then stuck till the next camp. Only one in five of SC and ST respondents reported that they had found the camps beneficial, hence implying that those who were in a structurally disadvantaged position socially faced obstructions in accessibility the camps as well.
There is no denying that the camp model has brought services closer to the public, but the politics brought with it cannot be ignored. While maximum respondents in the study felt that the camps have been effective, the reason that more than half of them cited was the proximity and less than 10% felt that it was more efficient than the existing bureaucratic mechanism. Along with this, the grassroots institutions of the Panchayat, the Gram Sansad and the Gram Sabha (as per the Forest Rights Act 2006), have been placed on the backburner.
The politics of welfare service delivery
The ultimate result of these camps seems to be in facilitating the transformation of the public from conscious rights-demanding citizens into a dependent and passive group of beneficiaries. The camps are places of bustling activity but having more stalls, schemes, visitors or even volunteers has not translated into higher recognition of rights or better awareness levels. Applicants are guided by those who are out to make a quick buck and forms are filled in various permutations and combinations. Accountability and transparency do not feature in the functioning of these camps and most applicants are not left with any acknowledgement or proof of having applied.
Fareena Bibi and her daughter-in-law. Photo: Mrinalini Paul
There is no doubt that decentralisation has taken place but a plotting of the government figures itself, of people registered in every round of the camp, shows a very low rate of actual coverage with only 118 people registered on an average for each camp held at the Panchayat level with a population not less than 10,000-15,000 voters.
With the campaigning for Panchayat elections sweeping across the state, there is no doubt that this massive outreach programme, along with various other innovative sounding programmes by the incumbent party, will go a long way. But the larger systematic challenges of social exclusion, corruption, state-Centre tussles, disempowerment of grassroots democratic institutions, etc. are not going unnoticed.
As Fareena Bibi from Sarenga Panchayat in Howrah said, “I am still waiting for compensation for my house broken during Amphan so how I can expect anything better?” She is 70 years old, and her son has recently met with an accident that has left him paralysed. Her daughter-in-law has visited every Duare Sarkar camp in their locality to apply for widow pension for Fareena but has not received anything yet.
Mrinalini Paul is a PhD research scholar at TISS, Mumbai.
