Twenty-five years after economic reforms that promised to create more jobs, remove the licence permit raj and poverty, most of the disadvantaged groups in India — women, Dalits, tribals, Muslims, informal sector workers, the poor, the elderly and the disabled — continue to be excluded from access to four key public goods — pensions, digital access, land, labour & resources and legal justice, says India Exclusion Report 2016.

When it comes to pensions, the report, third in the annual series brought out by the Centre for Equity Studies, finds that only a little over one-third of older persons (above 60 years) get some form of pension and less than 15 per cent of the labour force has any kind of social security.

“Nine in 10 persons are in informal employment, and they are deprived of any or adequate pensions in their old age” and have been left to fend for themselves, says the report.

Calling for universalisation of pension, the report cites the example of exclusion in the ‘flawed design’ of the contributory Atal Pension Scheme announced by the Narendra Modi government. At present, the scheme has only about three million subscribers (including those who have migrated from the Swavlamban Yojna initiated by the United Progressive Alliance government), which is way below the target of 20 million set by the government.

“Based on media reports, the Atal Pension Scheme has fallen way short of achieving its own target as well as in assuring income security to a substantial number of those who at present are engaged in employment which is unprotected and does not offer any kind of security in old age,” says the report, which has contributions from a wide range of domain experts.

With the Modi government making public entitlements digital and pushing for digital payments after demonetisation, the report finds that the poor and illiterate, especially in rural areas, are the ones facing the roughest time.

“The most formidable hurdle in digital inclusion is the inability of Indians to afford data plans. The State of Connectivity Report, 2015, by internet.org stated that four of five Indians could afford internet if data costs fell by 66 per cent, but Indian telecom operators already claim to run data services at an 11 per cent loss, making cost-cutting difficult. The statistics show that a data plan, currently priced at ₹100 should not cost more than ₹34, if India has to make internet affordable for 80 per cent of its population,” says the report.

As it is, poverty and socio-economic constraints digitally exclude the people belonging to lower rungs of the economic ladder as they cannot afford new communication technologies. What adds to their woes is poor network coverage which is denying them public goods and services.

The report cites the example of the Common Service Centre which was conceptualised as front-end service delivery outlets enabling smooth and transparent e-governance at the village level.

“Only 10 States were able to establish these on time. The bottlenecks on the ground were poor IT infrastructure, lack of adequate institutional framework and governance mechanisms, failures of State governments to allot land particularly in the north-eastern states as well as states like Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.”

The high-profile Digital India programme was aimed to provide broadband connectivity through optical fibre to 2,50,000 gram panchayats.

“There have been delays in the roll-out. More significantly, 100,200 panchayats were targeted under Phase 1 which was scheduled to be completed in March 2014. As of April 2016, only 48,199 panchayats were covered. But only 6,727 panchayats have internet access, only 13 per cent of the connected panchayats or 6 per cent of the total scheduled for Phase 1.This is an important reality check that must be heeded by policy-makers who dream of a cashless India despite failures of the government to ensure connectivity to the mass of the rural populace,” the report adds.

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