Contribution short abstract:

I discuss the narratives of fraud around the BOCW funds in India that administrative officials and labour union activists highlight. Juxtaposing this with the adminstrative unaccountability of these funds is an opportunity to examine the moral imaginaries around welfare in India.

Contribution long abstract:

In this roundtable, I will discuss the dominance of the narrative of fraudulent beneficiaries that ignores the administrative/fiscal non-accountability around social welfare funds i India. In doing so, I touch upon the significant overlaps between the ‘deserving’ and the ‘undeserving’ and the moral imaginary around welfare and its beneficiaries.

Funds running into billions of Indian rupees lie unspent with special-purpose social welfare boards such as the Building and Other Construction Workers (BOCW) welfare board in India. These boards, constituted specifically to address the vulnerabilities of these workers, collect funds through a cess. Cesses are different from general taxation in that these funds are earmarked for specific purposes. In their quarter-century of existence the underspending by these welfare boards have largely escaped public scrutiny and unaccountability.

Right after the COVID-19-induced lockdown in India in March 2020, the central government instructed the states to mobilise the BOCW funds for pandemic relief. The states provided ex-gratia (or discretionary one-term) benefits for registered (and often, unregistered) construction workers and their families. Even as digitisation is championed as a way to weed out corruption, administrators and trade union activists point to ‘fraudulent’ registration and claims aimed at securing the cash transfers.

I juxtapose the unaccountability around under-spending and concern around fraud. A closer look at these invariably necessitate an introspection into the principles and practice of citizenship rights and guarantees.