New Delhi: India’s welfare architecture is undergoing a profound transformation, driven by digital public infrastructure and an explicit rights-based approach rooted in the Constitution.
Through large-scale platforms such as Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), Aadhaar, and emerging artificial intelligence (AI) systems, the Indian state is reframing welfare delivery not as administrative efficiency alone, but as the practical realisation of constitutional entitlements, particularly the right to life under Article 21.
As of 2025, DBT spans 1,206 central and state schemes, directly transferring benefits to citizens and reinforcing universal access as a matter of right.
At the same time, India is deploying AI-enabled tools to enhance the productivity, inclusion, and economic security of nearly 490 million informal workers.
Voice-based interfaces, smart contracts, and digital micro-credentials are expanding access to welfare, skills, and livelihoods across linguistic and literacy divides.
Anchored in Aadhaar-enabled systems and aligned with evolving global norms such as the UN Digital Governance Framework, India’s digital welfare model illustrates how technology can strengthen social justice, accountability, and citizen-centric governance at a population scale.
Constitutional foundations of digital welfare
The Indian Constitution has long placed social and economic welfare at the heart of governance. Article 21, which guarantees the right to life and personal liberty, has been consistently interpreted by courts to include the right to live with dignity, encompassing access to food, health, shelter, and social security.
In recent years, digital governance mechanisms have become key instruments through which these constitutional promises are operationalised.
Direct Benefit Transfer represents a structural shift in how the state discharges its welfare obligations. Instead of routing subsidies through multiple administrative layers, DBT credits benefits directly into beneficiaries’ bank accounts, ensuring timeliness, transparency, and traceability.
According to official government data, DBT now covers 1,206 schemes across ministries and states, with cumulative transfers running into several lakh crore rupees since inception. This scale positions DBT as one of the largest rights-delivery systems in the world.
Crucially, DBT is framed not merely as a cost-saving or anti-leakage reform, but as a mechanism to uphold constitutional entitlements.
By ensuring that benefits reach the intended individual without discrimination or delay, digital transfers reinforce equality before the law and the substantive content of Article 21.
Welfare delivery thus becomes a matter of enforceable access rather than discretionary distribution.
Direct benefit transfer as a rights-based infrastructure
The expansion of DBT has redefined the relationship between the citizen and the state. Each transaction creates a verifiable trail, strengthening accountability while preserving the dignity of beneficiaries by reducing physical interfaces and discretionary gatekeeping.
Programmes such as PM-KISAN, MGNREGA wage payments, social pensions, scholarships, and fertiliser and food subsidies are now predominantly delivered through DBT-linked systems.
One of the most cited examples is the PAHAL scheme for liquefied petroleum gas subsidies. By transferring subsidies directly to consumers’ bank accounts, PAHAL has ensured that household energy support reaches the rightful beneficiary, while reinforcing women’s financial agency in many households.
The scheme’s architecture demonstrates how digital delivery can translate policy intent into lived entitlement.
From a governance perspective, DBT strengthens fiscal transparency while reinforcing welfare as a human right.
Universal access is preserved through nationwide banking inclusion initiatives and interoperable digital platforms, ensuring that entitlement delivery is not contingent on geography, social identity, or administrative discretion.
Aadhaar and the architecture of trust
At the core of India’s digital welfare ecosystem lies Aadhaar, the world’s largest biometric digital identity system.
Aadhaar provides a unique, verifiable identity that enables accurate beneficiary identification across schemes while reducing duplication. Its role extends beyond authentication to enabling grievance redressal, portability of benefits, and real-time service delivery.
Aadhaar-enabled payment systems and authentication mechanisms underpin DBT transactions, pension disbursements, and subsidy delivery. They also support grievance redressal by allowing beneficiaries to track payments, raise complaints, and verify service status.
This integration enhances procedural fairness, a key component of rights-based governance.
India’s approach increasingly aligns with global digital governance principles that emphasise inclusion and accountability. Consistent with the UN Digital Governance Framework, Indian policy discourse now underscores the importance of offline alternatives, assisted modes, and appeal mechanisms.
These provisions ensure that digital systems expand access rather than replace human-centred governance, preserving universality while embracing technology.
AI and the informal workforce
While DBT and Aadhaar address income support and service delivery, the next phase of India’s digital welfare strategy focuses on economic empowerment.
Nearly 490 million Indians work in the informal sector, often without formal contracts, social security, or skill certification. AI-driven platforms are emerging as tools to bridge these structural gaps.
Government policy think tanks and ministries have outlined frameworks for deploying AI to enhance productivity, skills, and welfare access for informal workers.
Voice-based AI interfaces allow workers to interact with systems in their native languages, overcoming literacy barriers. Smart contracts can facilitate transparent work agreements and payments, while AI-enabled matching platforms connect workers to opportunities based on verified skills.
Digital micro-credentials, validated through secure digital infrastructure, allow informal workers to document skills acquired through experience or short-term training.
These credentials enhance mobility, employability, and access to credit and insurance, integrating informal labour into formal economic systems without erasing its flexibility.
This AI-driven model reflects a shift from welfare as compensation to welfare as capability enhancement. By combining income support with productivity tools, digital systems reinforce economic rights alongside social protection.
Digital public infrastructure as social infrastructure
India’s experience demonstrates that digital public infrastructure can function as social infrastructure. Platforms such as Aadhaar, DBT, Unified Payments Interface (UPI), and emerging AI governance frameworks create a common backbone that supports multiple welfare and development objectives simultaneously.
The integration of AI into this ecosystem represents an evolution rather than a rupture. AI systems are being layered onto existing rights-based platforms, ensuring continuity of constitutional safeguards while expanding functional capacity.
This layered approach allows welfare delivery, grievance redressal, skill development, and labour market access to converge within a single digital architecture.
Internationally, India’s model is increasingly referenced as an example of population-scale digital governance that prioritises inclusion. The emphasis on appeal mechanisms, assisted access, and offline options reflects alignment with global human rights standards in digital governance, reinforcing legitimacy and trust.
Digital grievance redressal and participatory governance
An essential component of rights-based welfare is the ability to seek remedy. Digital platforms in India increasingly integrate grievance redressal mechanisms that allow citizens to report delays, errors, or exclusions.
Aadhaar-linked systems enable accurate identification of grievances, while AI-powered tools are being used to triage and resolve complaints efficiently.
In several states and urban local bodies, AI-enabled grievance systems use voice notes and multilingual interfaces, making redress accessible to persons with disabilities and those unfamiliar with text-based systems.
These innovations strengthen participatory governance by embedding accountability within service delivery.
The emphasis on grievance redressal aligns with constitutional principles of natural justice and international norms that view access to remedy as integral to human rights protection.
A rights-centred digital future
India’s digital welfare transformation illustrates how technology can be harnessed to deepen, rather than dilute, constitutional governance. Through DBT, Aadhaar, and AI-driven systems, welfare delivery is increasingly framed as the realisation of fundamental rights, particularly the right to life with dignity.
By combining income support with productivity-enhancing AI tools, the nation is addressing both immediate welfare needs and long-term economic inclusion.
The integration of offline alternatives, appeal mechanisms, and grievance redressal within digital systems ensures that universality remains central to innovation.
As India continues to refine its digital public infrastructure, its experience offers a fact-based, scalable model of how rights-based governance can be strengthened through technology, reinforcing the principle that digital transformation, when anchored in constitutional values, can serve as a powerful instrument of social justice.
