Social Welfare and The Second Plan

By C. V. H. RAO, M.A.

There is a distinct prospect of social-welfare activities in India making great strides during the second Five Year Plan period. This statement is not a mere hope but a deduction from the facts of the present and from the widespread and growing recognition that economic progress, such as that being planned for and envisaged in the next Plan, must rest on the solid foundations of social welfare and social advance. The Welfare State, which is the goal of economic planning, will be a structure built on quicksands if, along with the elevation of standards of living of the people and of the national income, social progress and elimination of social disabilities are not ensured. The attainment of social security, as such, may be a somewhat distant ideal; but there is no doubt that the steps now being taken towards providing social services for the benefit of the people and welfare activities undertaken in the interests of various under-privileged, handicapped or ward sections of the population, will be greatly accelerated in the next few years, as an integral part of the second Five Year Plan.

The first Five Year Plan has definitely set the pace in this regard and what has been accomplished in the social welfare field during the last few years has made our people welfare-conscious. It has been said that the goal of welfare administration is the turning of welfare policy into welfare services. To ensure that such services and activities so span out that the huge gaps that exist are effectively filled up, would, however, demand not only a much larger provision of funds but a correspondingly large number of trained workers. Law and administration have to be streamlined and geared to the needs of welfare programmes and policies, so that the maximum results can be achieved from the expenditure of funds and the efforts of welfare agencies and personnel.

Then again, while on the one hand the State and its agencies are called upon to assume extended and more direct responsibility than in the past for social welfare work and activities, there is on the other the imperative need to mobilise, on a much bigger scale than previously, the services of voluntary organisations in the field, in order that their already wide participation in, and contribution to, the promotion of welfare work can become wider and more effective. A purposeful and fruitful partnership, of which there is already unmistakable evidence, can be ensured by a two-way traffic being established in this respect between the State and the private agencies at different levels. The responsibility for creating conditions propitious for the realisation of social equality as enjoined in the Constitution, instead of being shouldered unilaterally by the State, will thus be shared by it with voluntary and private agencies. It is the essence of the democratic basis of our Constitution that this partnership should be real and effective and mutually beneficial. Democratic principles and practice impose on the individual and the community the obligation of participating in the State’s responsibilities. If that participation is non-existent, either there will be social decay and disintegration, or the path will be cleared for State dictatorship, which in social affairs can be infinitely more obnoxious than dictatorship in the political or economic spheres.

In the context of the basic ideals of our Constitution and the Directive Principles of State Policy incorporated in it, the State in India has assumed responsibility for the amelioration and progress of some sections of the population like the Scheduled Castes and Tribes, the ward Classes, the ex-criminal tribes, and so on, who had for long been neglected.

The State has also assumed responsibility for the promotion of the welfare–economic, cultural and social of the people in the rural areas, for which Gandhiji and others before him had blazed the trail, through the organisation of community development programmes and national extension services in agriculture, animal husbandry, cottage industries, co-operation and others, which are intended to cover the whole country by 1961. The significant characteristic of these programmes, which is of cardinal importance, is that in them the State’s participation is principally in the, direction of providing financial and advisory assistance and the basic administrative services and the supervisory personnel for executing them. Essentially, the policy is to seek the active co-operation and participation of the local voluntary and private agencies like panchayats and co-operative societies and grama sanghams or village associations in the channelling of the various services and financial assistance. State effort in this sphere is thus concerned fundamentally with the strengthening of local efforts and not with an uprootment of the traditional norms of the people concerned.

The setting up of the Central Social Welfare Board in August 1953, as a sequel to the recommendation of the Planning Commission, constitutes a notable landmark in the direction of affording a fillip to social welfare activities in India. It involved the first specific recognition by the State in our country of its obligations in a field in which previously voluntary effort had been playing the predominant part. The aims and objectives of the Board, which is an autonomous body under the general administrative control of the Ministry of Education, Government of India, impose on it certain specific duties and obligations, which include assisting of voluntary welfare organisations to maintain and expand their services, coordination of the work of these organisations and establishing of new ones in those fields in which no such organisations at present exist, coordinating the welfare activities and schemes of the various Central Ministries, and formulating and helping in the implementation of welfare services for the benefit of those defenceless and destitute and needy groups who do not have the advantage of such services now.

It is not necessary to enter into the details of the Central Social Welfare Board’s work in this connection, except to say that its establishment and its functioning till now have inspired a new hope in, and imparted a dynamic direction to, social welfare activities in the country. It has helped in carving for social welfare schemes an unmistakable place in the structure of national welfare and progress. The State Social Welfare Advisory Boards, set up in the various States by the State Governments in consultation with the Central Board, provide a machinery which could vitalise the work of local welfare organisations and accentuate their utility to the community.

Additional to the Social Welfare activities sponsored, aided or implemented by or under the guidance of the Central Social Welfare Board and its State branches, a number of welfare programmes are sponsored and aided by Union Government Ministries, prominent among which are the youth welfare activities for members or ex-members of the Defence forces, under the supervision of the Ministry of Defence, which also is in charge of the National Cadet Corps, an organisation through which an increasingly large number of young college students are being initiated into social service and social welfare activities of different kinds particularly in the rural areas. A whole gamut of services for the welfare of labour in factories, mines and industrial establishments are in charge of the Ministry of Labour, though it is customary to regard these as “social services” and not “social welfare” services. The latter, which would include provision or amenities for the children of working women, social case work service for workers and their families, promotion of adult education among the working classes, and family planning services for them, constituting a range of activities in which voluntary workers and organisations are presently engaged will attain considerable momentum during the second Plan period. A scheme for coordinating the activities of the Labour Ministry and the Central Welfare Board in the field of family welfare of workers in the industrial establishments run by the State, is under consideration.

Social welfare does not restrict itself to the community’s responsibility for performing certain actions for the benefit of certain groups of needy, destitute, under-privileged and socially defenceless sections of the population, but should also comprehend efforts to elevate their social status and promote social justice. Regarded in this wise, there is an almost endless series of activities which require to be taken up in the context of the widespread ignorance, poverty and the incidence of social injustices and inequalities that prevail. In this sphere, therefore, the expansion of the State’s activities has to be on a scale commensurate with the demands of the situation, and should be ed up to the maximum extent possible by new legislative measures and effective implementation of existing welfare laws. Good intentions and a spirit of service are qualities which, when combined with adequate financial support, can carry social welfare workers a considerable way along the road of rendering service to their fellowmen in distress or want, but they cannot carry them the whole way. Alongside of these prerequisites, appropriate legislative measures, buttressed by effective sanctions in the form of an adequate enforcement machinery, are essential to achieve results.

In the administration of social welfare measures and legislation and in other directions too, a large and important field is reserved for the State Governments and Local Government organisations, which are the appropriate channels for the implementation of a number of schemes, ranging from child welfare to community and rural welfare. The manifestation of an awareness of its responsibility in this sphere by the Central Government should be increasingly reflected in the development of a similar awareness among the State Governments. Establishment of institutions, such as certified schools, Fit Person institutions, and remand homes for the reception and rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents and child offenders, special homes and work houses for the beggars, rescue homes for the reception and rehabilitation of unmarried mothers, delinquent women and those rescued from houses of prostitution, and institutions for the benefit of the physically and mentally handicapped, has to be taken up by the State Governments on their own initiative or in pursuance of Central directives. The police and vigilance machinery for the enforcement of the concerned laws has to be tightened up, so that the latter will not be mere warnings against evil-doing but will become effective instruments for its prevention.

All this involves tremendous administrative and organisational problems and problems of evoking public co-operation, and the employment of the services of a large number of persons. Social welfare administration is a formidable and complex process and predicates the possession, on the part of those engaged in it, of not only knowledge of the techniques of administration but also an intimate knowledge of human nature and psychology, an understanding sympathy and a spirit of service. Hence arises the need for training a large number of persons in social work methods, who can handle jobs in which initiative and competence are continuously called for. As is well-known, training schemes are already under way for workers to be employed in different capacities in the community development and national extension service blocks and in the rural welfare extension centres of the Central Social Welfare Board, for administering welfare services for the Scheduled Tribes and Hill Tribes, for dealing with problems of the handicapped and delinquent children and for implementing correctional and after-care programmes. During the second Five Year Plan period, these training schemes will have attained greater momentum, and large numbers of men and women, competent to undertake and discharge responsibilities in the various fields, would become available.

Besides the special training schemes for these various categories of personnel, the professional schools of social work provide specialized course’s of training for those who will be required to take up higher supervisory and administrative positions under State or voluntary welfare agencies or in State Departments of Social Welfare. A progressive intermingling of State-sponsored and State-administered social services and of services provided by voluntary welfare organisations can be envisaged in the next Plan period, the good offices of the Central Social Welfare Board and of the State Welfare Advisory Boards being available in promoting this co-ordination. A number of all-India organisations engaged in welfare work of different kinds already employ specially trained persons on their staffs to formulate and plan their activities and programmes.

The financing and administering of social services and welfare programmes present another series of problems which should receive accentuated attention in the next Plan period. Voluntary welfare institutions receiving grants-in-aid from State agencies are invariably required to find an amount equivalent to the grant from other sources or from public contributions. This is a salutary requirement, because, in finding these “matching” resources, the self-reliance and self-respect of these organisations are strengthened.

It is expected that during the second Plan period, schemes and activities to be aided or sponsored by the Central Social Welfare Board would involve an outlay from public funds of Rs. 15 crores. Welfare schemes, started and aided by the other Ministries of the Union Government or the State Governments, would involve an additional outlay, which may be anything from 50 to 60 crores. Thus tax-supported welfare services may be estimated to cost about Rs. 70 to 80 crores, and assuming that an equivalent sum is to be found from private sources or other sources in the form of buildings, lands, labour and equipment, the total funds available for social welfare work during the next five years can be estimated at about Rs. 150 crores. The experience of public co-operation in the community development projects and the N. E. S. blocks and in the welfare extension projects of the Central Social Welfare Board indicates that, provided proper guidance and leadership are available, the Indian people, specially the rural population, would respond enthusiastically to good causes, in the benefits from which they could participate. The Community Chest method of collecting funds for social and community welfare activities, widely prevalent in the United States, is new to our country; but it is a method which can be made to yield profitable results, when social welfare activities are organised on an institutionalised basis and co-ordination of activities between social welfare institutions and social workers in different spheres on the basis of pooled resources is established.

In the field of social welfare, therefore, the second Plan period will witness a great advance in a number of directions. Firstly, we can envisage a greater and more dynamic interest on the part of Governments, Central and State, in promoting welfare activities for the under-privileged, the unadjusted, the mal-adjusted and handicapped groups, in rural and urban community development, in youth welfare, and in the promotion of the welfare of Scheduled Tribes and the ward Classes, and lastly, in family welfare services. The demands of a Socialistic pattern of society and of social justice make this imperative. Secondly, we may look forward to better and more effective co-ordination of the programmes and activities of State and voluntary welfare agencies and a greatly extended participation of the latter in such activities, through the financial assistance and other help provided by the State agencies. Thirdly, there will be a further extension of facilities for the training of workers for general as well as the more specialised categories of welfare work, and, therefore, larger opportunities for employment of such workers under the State and voluntary welfare agencies. Fourthly, there will have to be larger allocations of funds by the State, in the Central and the State spheres, for a variety of welfare services covering a large number of needy and destitute groups in the urban as well as the rural areas, particularly the latter. Simultaneously, we may envisage a more pronounced welfare bias being imparted to the administrative machinery in general, so that it will become an instrument for the promotion, enforcement and execution of welfare policies. Lastly, we can expect a greater and more purposeful co-ordination between law and administration on the one hand, and law and the activities of social welfare workers and organisations on the other, so that welfare legislation will be more effectually implemented and, whenever necessary, existing laws will be amended or altered to enable new situations to be competently met and social evils to be competently combated.

Changes in social outlooks and thoughts, especially when those outlooks are deep-rooted in long tradition and have crystallized into ways of life, as is the case with us in some respects, are not easy to bring about. But desirable changes dictated by the status of Freedom which India has attained cannot be obstructed, though it is, from the practical point of view, preferable to bring them about by education and propaganda than by imposition from above. This is what we are attempting to do in India in the social sphere, and inevitably the process is somewhat slow–in some respects probably painfully slow. But enlightened public opinion would, however, help in quickening the pace of reform.

In a rapidly advancing world, with the diversity and complexity of the problems confronting the State and society, social welfare measures of adequate dimensions can be formulated and executed only on the basis of reliable and properly collected and analysed statistics and information. Social research is, therefore, a line of activity which should receive greater and greater attention in the next few years. The realisation of the need for research into social problems and for collection of statistical information, say, regarding the number of beggars, the physically or mentally handicapped, the destitute and the infirm and the delinquent groups, are an essential preliminary for formulating relief and welfare programmes of commensurate proportions.

Lastly, social welfare work in India, during the latter half of the 19th and the first decades of the present century was considered as interchangeable with social reform, particularly in the sphere of ameliorating the conditions of women and children. With changed conditions and situations, it has to develop a new and practical philosophy appropriate to the present times, taking into account the need for dovetailing planning for social welfare with planning for economic welfare. Such a philosophy is desiderated to provide a basis of strength to the diversity of welfare activities that are being undertaken, or are proposed to be undertaken, in the urban and rural areas. The broad foundations on which this philosophy can be built up have been outlined above; and in the urban family welfare schemes sponsored by the Central Social Welfare Board, in collaboration with the Ministry of commerce and Industry, we have the foundations of an organisational set-up, which can profitably be extended to a number of urban centres throughout the country. When properly co-ordinated and synthesised, the various items of work and activity referred to in the course of this article, should cumulatively result in producing a body of informed thought on the subject, which will increasingly inspire those engaged in welfare work and which will also inform the welfare policies and programmes of the State, both in the Central and the State spheres.