The Fallacy of Neutrality: Examining Structural Bias and Accountability Gaps in India’s Automated Welfare Targeting

The emergence of algorithmic regimes in India's welfare services has transformed the measurement of poverty, verification of eligibility, and the application of rules in welfare programs. Welfare schemes such as Public Distribution System (PDS), Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) and Swasthya Sathi now rely mainly on digitalisation, fingerprint scans and automated profiling to identify who is entitled to what and put benefits in their hands. These technologies will increase productivity, enable more transparent processes, and reduce expenses, though they also carry the risk of enshrining old socio-economic hierarchies by imbuing procedures for welfare algorithm construction and utilisation with a sense of insidious prejudice. This paper will discuss why profiling the poor in India using algorithms may result in errors of exclusion, injustice, and violation of the constitutional directives of equality and dignity. The study will rely on court decisions and legislation in other countries to understand how the welfare system in India gets away with it. It presents the case for algorithmic governance based on rights, making fairness, inclusivity, and accountability core to how welfare is aimed, such as providing a fair opportunity for support to every family in need.