Poor targeting, or benefits reaching undeserving recipients, has been among the most common criticisms of welfare programmes in India. The adoption of JAM (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile) trinity was supposed to get rid of this problem. An HT analysis of unit level data from a 2018 National Statistical Office (NSO) survey shows that at least one of the government’s flagship welfare schemes, the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), has successfully addressed the challenge — and excluded undeserving beneficiaries.
However, this has not helped the scheme in achieving its end objective, which is to get households to shift to less polluting methods of cooking. The reason, ironical as it may sound, is to be found in the scheme’s successful identification of beneficiaries. A large number of them are so poor that they cannot afford to buy liquified petroleum gas (LPG) cylinder refills.
