Livelihood Grants and the Case of Ultra-Poor Women Households in Bihar, India

This article presents a critical commentary on the implementation of a graduation approach-based poverty alleviation scheme for transforming the lives of poor, marginalised communities (i.e., erstwhile toddy tappers and women-headed households). It draws from a qualitative study on the working of the Government of Bihar’s Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana or the SJY scheme in the Madhubani district of Bihar, one of India’s poorest states. It primarily argues that there is a scope of improvement on four key fronts, namely (a) asymmetry between beneficiaries’ capabilities and livelihood opportunities provided (b) streamlining the different stages of ultra-poor graduation, (c) efficient cross-checking of developments on the field by project staff and (d) proper training of these beneficiaries to account for the unintended bureaucratic slippages by the beneficiaries. Thus in so doing, it avers, that given the socio-cultural and institutional limitations within which this project works, sealing these leaks could substantially improve the efficacy of this scheme.