Over the semester, when I discussed state welfare with my students, the term “freebies” inevitably came up with an unusual certainty. For us, it became a catch-all category, one that collapsed very different policies like the mid-day meals, youth stipend, public distribution food and women’s income transfers into a single derogatory descriptor.
Let me admit that I too, approached state benefits through a narrow lens of fiscal profligacy. Transfers are either inefficient or populist, I said. And critiqued, if not all, rather many forms of state support as fiscally irresponsible indulgence. Over time, here I am, in a disharmonious dialogue with my discerning self.
I write from this discomfort. And I will argue against the “freebies” label precisely because it erases the structural conditions that make many transfers necessary. To an inductive argument that asks - Do women choose freebies over development? My answer is “No”.
And honestly, I don’t even think that the framing is fair. In fact, it is a bit lazy analytically.
Bihar is still at the bottom of literacy and human development; it has the lowest literacy rate in India and a large gender gap. Looking at NFHS-5 data, we see persistent gaps in access to sanitation, clean cooking fuel and health services across districts. When you layer that with extremely low female labour force participation (overall and as low as 8 or 9 per cent for young women recently), it’s not obvious what “choosing development” would concretely look like at the ballot box.
From an economic standpoint, I would say women are responding to binding constraints and short time horizons. If your current income is close to zero, your access to health and childcare is patchy, and the probability that some grand “development” promise turns into tangible benefits in your own life is low, then a certain 1,000 or 10,000 rupees today is not a “freebie”, I consider it as a risk-minimising choice, one that is consistent with survival.
So let me rephrase: women are not choosing freebies over development; they are choosing predictable, individualised benefits over vague, collective development promises. These are very different statements.
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Bihar is a state where development has not yet become a lived reality for most women. It has the lowest literacy rate in India, some of the country’s weakest health indicators, and a female labour force participation rate hovering around 15 to 16 per cent, dropping 10 per cent for young women in recent surveys.
These are not peripheral statistics; they define the opportunity set within which women make decisions. When long-term “development” has not produced accessible jobs, safe transport, functional clinics or affordable childcare, an immediate cash transfer is not a freebie; it is often the only instrument of economic agency available to women. Describing this choice as a preference for handouts obscures the central fact that for many women in Bihar, development has not yet matured into a credible alternative.
Freebies, Freebies And More Freebies
I am also unhappy with commentators routinely collapsing very different interventions under the single label of freebies. I think it is analytically misleading. A better taxonomy should distinguish public good investments such as schools, primary health centres, sanitation networks, entitlement-based welfare, say mid-day meals, pensions, public distribution food, and short-term or election-timed transfers that are mostly one-off cash injections, consumer goods and large untargeted waivers.
Historically, India’s earliest welfare programmes demonstrate why this distinction matters: the mid-day meal, often simplistically lumped into freebies, originated in Tamil Nadu in the 1950s as a human capital intervention to raise enrolment and nutrition, and later became a national entitlement. What I want to show is that what looks like a freebie can, in fact, be a long-term developmental investment.
Similarly, Bihar’s recent welfare politics reflects this. In 2025, the state announced or expanded several high-visibility transfers to women: a Rs 10,000 payment to roughly 21 lakh women will amount to over Rs 2,100 crore, and a broader commitment under the Mukhyamantri Mahila Rojgar Yojana, with publicly reported allocations running into several thousand crore rupees.
Earlier elections saw recurring promises of youth stipends, loan waivers, and free education commitments.
Such schemes vary dramatically in purpose: some stabilise households facing income shocks; some build capability; others clearly track the electoral calendar. The challenge is not to morally rank them, but to evaluate their functionality: does the intervention merely trigger a one-time consumption, or does it expand a woman’s long-term capabilities?
A useful rule of thumb is functional: if a scheme expands capability in the form of improving nutrition, schooling, mobility, or health security, then it is social infrastructure. Even if it is provided at no cost. By contrast, large one-off transfers or untargeted waivers may soothe distress without changing the structural constraints.
These are inconspicuously different. Bihar illustrates both sides of this spectrum. There are legitimate fiscal concerns when states finance election-timed transfers by compressing capital expenditure. Yet blanket condemnation misses the deeper reality: in a context where formal employment for women is scarce and public services unreliable, cash often substitutes for systems that have not been built.
Short-term Gains
What often gets missed in debates on freebies is the extent to which Bihar’s weak public infrastructure forces women into short-term decision-making. NFHS 5 shows that only 28.3 per cent of women in Bihar received all recommended antenatal check-ups, and more than 40 per cent still rely on biomass fuels.
Schools exist, but secondary attendance for girls drops sharply because safe mobility is limited and reliable transport is scarce. Skilling programmes struggle as well. A 2023 state audit says that fewer than 20 per cent of trained women transitioned into stable employment.
In such conditions, cash transfers begin to substitute for public goods that should have existed in the first place. A woman who cannot reach a clinic will inevitably use cash for medical crises; a girl who cannot safely access a school or training centre makes the household more inclined to value liquidity over long-term educational returns. When infrastructure does not expand women’s choices, freebies are not distortions; they are compensations. And unless public systems improve, the welfare state will continue financing the consequences of its own absences.
If the term freebie is to retain any analytic value, it must differentiate between what merely distributes money and what expands capability. That distinction offers a clearer way forward for states like Bihar. The first task is to create a predictable social floor. Narrow, recurring support that women can rely on and be insulated from election cycles. Regularity matters more than magnitude. A modest, stable transfer offers more welfare and less fiscal distortion than sporadic, pre-poll disbursements.
The second task will be to pair this floor with structural commitments that reduce the need for cash in the first place. Investment in primary healthcare, safe transport, and skilling pathways tied to real labour demand. If these foundations are strengthened, cash can function as a complement rather than a substitute for development. The question in Bihar is therefore not whether women are “choosing freebies,” but whether the state is prepared to build the conditions in which women no longer have to.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. |
