The universal basic income (UBI) is an age-old idea which found its way into the economic survey of 2017 and in other policy documents in India. Its toned-down versions are being implemented through myriad schemes in India, but invariably as doles. They lack one or the other feature of UBI like universality, unconditionally, regularity, payment in cash, and payability to individual citizens.
As different governments transfer cash to this or that section of society on different pretexts, this only confirms the inevitability of UBI. Even otherwise the growing scarcity of jobs and livelihood due to automation and international competition makes UBI unavoidable.
While it is highly imperative to implement a full-fledged UBI in the country, certain conditions must be fulfilled for ensuring its viability. It requires a substantial downsizing of the government, the closure of most of the other welfare schemes and the cessation of subsidies. It would also require the rationalisation of government functions and optimisation of efficiency and cost-effectiveness in whatever it does.
Secondly, as a corollary of the first, it needs optimisation of liberalisation. The country must be highly productive and internationally competitive so that it has a sufficient surplus after paying all its import bills to fund the basic income of a billion-plus citizens of the country.
Niraj Kumar Jha
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