Published Paper Details:

Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) have always been a foundational tool for promoting the welfare of citizens in diversified sectors such as health, education and women empowerment in India. Yet, the approachability of these schemes for people belonging to excluded or marginalized groups remains a persistent and unresolved concern. While CCTs aim to support the ones most in need, a significant vacuum in stakeholder accountability and administrative responsiveness raises a big question about their effectiveness. The government's aim of digitizing every scheme also ignores the fact that a large group of people do not have proper bank accounts or adequate access to digital payment interfaces, raising critical questions about equitable access. On one hand, the government seeks to uplift the sections of society that genuinely need help, but on the other hand, the due diligence and compliance requirements for these programmes often become major barriers for the very population they intend to uplift. The bureaucracy needs to ensure that the mechanism is redesigned in a manner that includes all targeted sections of society smoothly through truly inclusive implementation, while ensuring access to everyone who qualifies after fair verification. Without substantive measures, the government is failing to fulfill its constitutional obligations to its citizens under Article 14 and Article 21 of the Constitution, which guarantee equality and the right to live with dignity. This critical review highlights the dire need to recalibrate India's CCT framework towards a more holistic, accessible and dignified uplifting model.