Aligning Government Initiatives with Sustainable Development Goals: A Village-Level Mapping in India

The paper examines the relationship between the various development and welfare schemes and the SDGs at the village level in India. The objective of the paper is to enlist the schemes functional at the village level that directly benefit the village households and to measure the extent of benefits from different schemes by households categorized on the basis of income, social groups, occupation, and land ownership. The coverage of beneficiaries and financial assistance received by the villagers helps us to see a composite picture of SDG implementation in the village, linking it with policy impact. It further analyses whether the beneficiaries have utilized the resources distributed under the welfare schemes for their targeted purpose. The research was conducted in Emped village, India, by collecting information from all 287 households in the year 2017. Although more than 50 schemes were implemented in the state, the study covered only 29 schemes which had at least one beneficiary household in the village. The majority of households benefited from schemes like the Public Distribution System, direct benefit transfer to farmers, the employment guarantee, and the mid-day meal scheme, but very few benefited from the large-ticket schemes like the housing scheme. Schemes addressed to women like the assistance to pregnant women were effective. Most of the assistance received from agricultural development schemes was spent on the intended purpose, whereas others were spent on consumption purposes. Though these schemes were helpful in addressing the needs of the poor and the needy, there was a delay in fund reimbursement, leakages, and exclusion errors. The relationship between monetary benefits received and the income of households is best represented by an ‘inverted U shape’ curve, indicating that most of the benefits from welfare programmes were received by the high and middle-income categories, excluding the poorest section.