S

Sachin

Question 4Answer sub-questions (a) (b) (c) (d)GS4GS1

A certain State government was running a welfare scheme for promoting safe motherhood among rural landless labourers' families. The scheme involves the transfer of funds to the beneficiaries to enable them to mitigate income loss due to maternal care responsibilities. Since its implementation, the scheme has functioned reasonably well on maternal health and economic indicators. You are the Director of the Department responsible for implementing and operating the scheme. Recently you have been receiving reports of welfare fraud being committed by some families. The families committed the fraud with the help of local officials responsible for scrutinizing the bonafide. You were concerned because the fraud was seriously undermining the scheme's efficiency. You called for a departmental meeting to discuss and find a solution to the problem. In the meeting, it was decided to merge several available government data sets such as calendar cards, voter ID cards, ration cards, bank details, and other personal assets. By merging all the data sets, the department would be able to develop the beneficiary's economic profile. This will help the department scrutinize the documents and detect fraud. This was a comprehensive strategy, but it risked violating an individual's data privacy. As a Department head, you wanted to detect and prevent fraud, but at the same time, you were apprehensive about violating the Data privacy of the stakeholders.

Open scan (p.15)

Introduction

a) The debate over risking data privacy of beneficiaries for the sake of implementing welfare measures has been long standing one and further accelerating in the modern digitized world.

29 words

Main Body

Recently, breach of data of patients at AIIMS hospital, Delhi is the care in point.

Stakeholders involved:

1State government
2Undesi labourers' families
3Myself (Director of Department of Implementation)
4Local officials
5Society at large

Issues involved in above case:

1Right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution
2Diversion of welfare fund to welfare fraud
3Nexus & lack of responsibility with scrutinizing by local officials
4Challenge to balance privacy v/s welfare issue

[Continuation of analysis]

Possible solutions:

1Right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution
2Diversion of welfare fund to welfare fraud
3Nexus & lack of responsibility with scrutinizing by local officials
4Challenge to balance privacy v/s welfare issue

[Multiple points discussing:]n- Public interest over political interest

Marginalization of idealble civil servants
Role of media and public servants
Sufficient internal mechanism within service

However, career & service obligation should balance such that public service obligation takes primacy over career obligations.

166 words7 paragraphs3 bullet points
  • Clear identification of stakeholders
  • Recognition of constitutional dimension (Article 21)
  • Real-world example (AIIMS breach)
  • Identification of systemic issues (local officials nexus)

Topper

Sachin

Subject & Paper

GS4GS1

Topic

Public Service Dilemma

Privacy vs. Welfare Implementation

Data Privacy and Welfare Fraud Prevention

Writing Stats

195

Total words

7

Paragraphs

3

Bullets