Dynamics of Public Administration
Year : 2018, Volume : 35, Issue : 2
First page : ( 189) Last page : ( 202)
Print ISSN : 0975-3907. Online ISSN : 0976-0733.
Article DOI : 10.5958/0976-0733.2018.00014.7

Examining Discourses on Social Welfare Policy Governance in Liberalised India with Focus on Public Health and Education Sectors

Tewari Saumya

PhD Scholar, Centre for Public Policy, Habitat and Human Development, School of Development Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai-400088, Maharashtra, India. Email id: tewari.saumya@gmail.com

Online published on 23 November, 2018.

Abstract

With a focus on basic healthcare and education schemes, this paper analyses the politics of development narrative in India. Institutions of policymaking contribute to the political rhetoric of development, while inequalities in human development in post-liberalisation period could not be addressed through the erstwhile planning model. Economic planning after liberalisation was kept alive to focus on welfare policies. A socialist rhetoric of development had to be maintained for the electoral base too. Socialism as embedded in the narratives of development created political value for the governing class and the institutional design and reforms endorsed those narratives as policy. Voter agency of citizens was thus fully utilised to maintain political legitimacy of institutions while stakeholder agency as recipients of welfare is not aggregated in policy design and implementation. In this context, the paper also throws light on current governance issues in social welfare policies by compiling evidences from government documents, media and civil society reports to comment on the on-going narratives of human development with the abolition of the erstwhile planning model in policy formulation and its replacement by National Institution for Transforming India Aayog.

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Keywords

Planning, Welfare, Development, Populism, NITI Aayog.

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