One India, Unequal Access: Citizens Count the Cost of a Patchy Public System

NEW DELHI: For 42-year-old domestic worker Sunita Devi, India’s expanding digital public infrastructure is both a convenience and a new queue.

At a government service centre in east Delhi, she has come to correct an address mismatch that she says has complicated access to subsidised food and delayed an application for a welfare benefit.

Around her are migrants, pensioners and gig workers carrying plastic folders filled with identity cards, rent papers, bank passbooks and mobile-phone screenshots — evidence of how citizenship is increasingly experienced through databases, documents and the ability to navigate a public system that remains sharply uneven.

Key points

- Citizens report that identity and welfare services are easier when records match, but errors can trigger repeated visits and lost wages.

- Migrant workers often face a gap between nationally portable entitlements and local requirements for housing, health, schooling and certificates.

- Digital delivery has reduced some forms of delay, while weak connectivity, low digital literacy and dependence on intermediaries create fresh barriers.

- Official data show wider access to bank accounts, ration portability and online services, but access does not always translate into timely delivery.

- Front-line staff say high caseloads and fragmented databases make grievance resolution slower than enrolment or application filing.

Sunita, who asked that only her first name be used, said she had missed two mornings of work over the past month while trying to align the details on different records. “Every office asks for a document from another office,” she said. “If the name or address is written differently, the work stops.

For people like us, one visit means losing that day’s income.”

Her experience captures a central contradiction in the relationship between Indians and the state.

Public services are reaching more people through digital identity, direct transfers, online certificates and portable welfare systems.

Yet the burden of proving eligibility, correcting records and following up on complaints still falls heavily on citizens with the least time, money and institutional access.

At the service centre, applicants moved between a token counter, biometric devices and photocopy shops in the adjoining lane.

Several said they had travelled after being told that an online request could not be resolved without an in-person verification.

Others had arrived because they did not own a smartphone, had changed mobile numbers or could not read the status messages sent in English.

A centre supervisor, who was not authorised to speak on behalf of the government and requested anonymity, said many cases were not technically difficult but required records held by separate departments. “A citizen sees one government, but the systems may belong to different agencies,” the supervisor said. “We can submit a request, but we cannot always correct the source record.

That is where people have to make repeat visits.”

The scale of India’s public-delivery architecture is vast.

The Unique Identification Authority of India has issued more than 1.3 billion Aadhaar numbers.

The Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana dashboard has reported more than 50 crore beneficiary bank accounts, while the National Food Security Act covers up to 81.35 crore people for subsidised foodgrains.

The government’s One Nation One Ration Card system is intended to allow beneficiaries to collect their entitlement outside the state or district where their ration card was issued.

These systems have enabled portability and reduced the need for some paper-based checks.

But residents and field workers say the last mile remains vulnerable to failed authentication, inactive bank accounts, incorrect seeding, poor awareness and differences between central and state procedures.

At a ration shop serving a mixed working-class neighbourhood, dealer Rajesh Kumar said portability had helped construction workers and tenants who moved frequently. “Earlier, many migrants would go without grain or depend on relatives in their village to collect it,” he said. “Now the transaction can happen here if the record is active.

Problems come when fingerprints do not match, family details are outdated or the network is down.”

Rules provide for alternative procedures in cases where biometric authentication fails, but beneficiaries interviewed said they did not always know what those alternatives were or how to demand them.

Rights workers argue that a technically available fallback is of limited value unless front-line staff and citizens clearly understand it.

Banking access presents a similar picture.

Basic accounts have brought millions into the formal financial system and made direct transfers possible.

Yet account holders may still travel to branches or banking correspondents to resolve failed payments, dormant accounts or know-your-customer requirements.

For daily-wage workers, transport expenses and lost work can exceed the value of a delayed instalment.

“Digital inclusion cannot be measured only by the number of accounts, IDs or applications,” said Anjali Verma, a Delhi-based social policy researcher who studies welfare delivery. “The relevant test is whether a person can complete a transaction, receive the benefit and correct an error without disproportionate cost.

Grievance redress is the real stress test of a digital state.”

The divide is also visible in access to housing and local documentation.

Migrants who rent rooms informally may not have registered leases or utility bills in their names.

That can make it harder to establish residence for services that are not fully portable, even when they possess nationally recognised identity documents.

A 29-year-old delivery worker from Bihar, waiting at the centre to update his mobile number, said his Aadhaar and bank account helped him receive payments and complete workplace verification.

But he described local paperwork as more difficult. “For work, the phone and ID are enough,” he said. “For a school admission or an address proof, the landlord’s paper is asked for.

Many landlords do not give an agreement.”

Education and healthcare expose another layer of inequality.

Government schools and hospitals provide an essential safety net, but demand is highest in dense settlements where staffing and infrastructure are under pressure.

Families interviewed said they often shift between public and low-cost private providers, paying out of pocket when waiting times, travel or unavailable tests make public care impractical.

Official surveys have consistently shown large differences in access and outcomes across states, rural and urban areas, gender and income groups.

India has expanded electricity connections, sanitation coverage, bank access and digital transactions over the past decade, but service quality and household security remain uneven.

National averages can conceal neighbourhoods where piped water is intermittent, public transport is distant or internet access depends on one shared handset.

Women face distinct barriers.

A phone may be registered in a husband’s or son’s name, while travel to an office may require permission, childcare or an escort.

Older citizens can struggle with one-time passwords, biometric devices and changing interfaces.

Persons with disabilities may encounter inaccessible buildings or portals even when schemes formally provide support.

Kavita Rao, a community organiser working with low-income women in Delhi, said assisted access remains indispensable. “People are not refusing technology,” she said. “They are asking for a system that does not punish them for sharing a phone, forgetting a password or having a spelling difference in a document.

A help desk must be able to solve the problem, not merely generate another reference number.”

Front-line officials, meanwhile, operate under constraints of their own.

A municipal facilitation officer said staff manage high daily footfall while depending on state and national databases that may not communicate seamlessly. “Citizens expect a single-window solution, which is reasonable,” the officer said, requesting that their name be withheld because they were not designated to address the media. “But a counter operator may have permission to view a record and not to amend it.

Better integration and clear escalation timelines would reduce conflict at the counter.”

Background

India’s welfare model has changed substantially through the use of Aadhaar, bank accounts, mobile connectivity and direct benefit transfers.

Governments have promoted these systems as tools to reduce duplication, improve targeting and take services closer to citizens.

Online platforms now cover taxes, passports, certificates, pensions, health programmes, scholarships and employment-related registrations.

The expansion has coincided with rapid urbanisation and large-scale internal migration.

The 2011 Census recorded hundreds of millions of people living away from their place of last residence, though the reasons included marriage as well as work and family movement.

More recent migration patterns are difficult to assess comprehensively because the next decennial census results were not available at the time of reporting.

The pandemic made the vulnerabilities of mobile workers particularly visible.

Since then, ration portability and worker-registration initiatives have received greater attention.

The e-Shram portal was created as a national database of unorganised workers, but registration by itself does not guarantee a uniform package of benefits, many of which remain linked to separate schemes and eligibility rules.

India’s constitutional framework promises equality before the law and sets out directive principles aimed at social and economic welfare.

In practice, citizens encounter the state through a federal structure in which the Union, states and local bodies have different responsibilities.

That division can support local adaptation, but it can also produce varying eligibility rules, service standards and grievance mechanisms.

What it means

For citizens, the practical meaning of “India in India” is that national systems coexist with intensely local realities.

A portable ration entitlement may work across states, while affordable housing, municipal water, school documentation or primary healthcare remain tied to the place where a person currently lives.

A digital certificate may be available within minutes for one applicant and take weeks for another whose records do not match.

The gap is not simply between online and offline India.

It is between those who can absorb friction and those who cannot.

A salaried worker may take leave, pay an agent or make several visits.

A domestic worker, street vendor or driver may lose income each time an application fails.

The same procedural delay therefore imposes unequal costs.

Experts say three changes would make the system more citizen-centred: interoperable records with strong privacy safeguards; time-bound correction and appeal mechanisms; and a guaranteed assisted, offline route for those unable to use digital channels.

Clear receipts, status tracking in local languages and accountability for unresolved complaints would also reduce dependence on informal intermediaries.

Reactions

Residents interviewed broadly welcomed services that reduced travel and allowed benefits to follow them across district or state borders.

Their complaints focused less on digitisation itself than on the difficulty of correcting mistakes and identifying which office had authority to act.

Civil-society workers called for regular social audits and public reporting on rejected, pending and corrected applications, rather than only total enrolments or transactions.

They also urged departments to measure the time and money citizens spend resolving failures.

Service-centre staff said simplified forms, stable portals and better coordination between departments would ease pressure on counters.

They cautioned that aggressive targets for online disposal can obscure cases that remain technically closed but practically unresolved.

What happens next

The immediate test for governments will be whether the next phase of digital public delivery prioritises successful outcomes over enrolment numbers.

Departments are expected to continue expanding online services, electronic records and portability, while states and local bodies will remain responsible for much of the last-mile implementation.

For Sunita, the policy debate is more direct.

She left the centre with an acknowledgement slip and a request to check the status later.

If the correction goes through, she said, she can move to the next application.

If it does not, she will return with the same folder — and give up another morning’s pay.