BharatNotes Targeting
noun (also the present participle / gerund of the verb "target"); functions attributively as a modifier (e.g. "targeting strategy")Usage in a UPSC answer
The shift from universal subsidies to the precise targeting of welfare through Direct Benefit Transfer and Aadhaar-based authentication has plugged leakages, yet it risks excluding the genuinely poor whose documentation is incomplete.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Word Family
target (n/v), targeted (adj), targetable (adj), retarget (v), untargeted (adj)
Root
Old French targette = small round shield, diminutive of targe; -ing suffix added in policy sense (20th c.)
Etymology
From target (originally a small round shield, from Old French targette, diminutive of targe) + -ing; the policy sense of directing resources at defined populations developed in welfare economics during the 20th century.
Memory Hook
Picture an archer drawing a bead on the bull's-eye of a "targe" (the old round shield) — targeting is the act of locking your aim onto one precise spot rather than spraying arrows everywhere.
How This Word Works in UPSC Writing
Directing benefits to a defined group rather than to everyone, and the debate is among the most examinable in social policy because it has three positions rather than two. Universal provision reaches everyone, avoids identification costs entirely, carries no stigma and builds a broad political constituency, but is expensive and transfers resources to those who do not need them. Targeting concentrates resources where they are needed but requires identification, which is administratively costly, error-prone and stigmatising, and it narrows the constituency for the scheme, which is the substance of the argument that benefits meant only for the poor tend to become poor benefits. The methods differ in kind and should be distinguished: means testing assesses income directly and works badly where income is informal and unrecorded; proxy means testing infers it from observable assets; geographic targeting covers a backward area entirely; and self-targeting designs the benefit so that only those who need it will want it, which is the logic of a work requirement at a wage set below the market rate.
Don’t Confuse It With
Universal provision covers everyone in a category while targeting selects within it, and self-targeting designs the benefit so that only those who need it will apply, as with a wage deliberately set below the market rate. Means testing assesses income directly whereas proxy means testing infers it from observable assets, which suits economies where income is largely unrecorded. Geographic targeting covers a whole area rather than selecting households within it. The claim that benefits for the poor become poor benefits concerns the political sustainability of narrow schemes rather than their design.
Hindi Meaning
लक्ष्यीकरण (lakshyīkaran); सार्वभौमिक (sārvabhaumik) for universal.
Common Questions
- What is self-targeting?
- Designing a benefit so that only those who genuinely need it will choose to claim it, as with manual work offered at a wage set below the prevailing market rate.
- Why is universal provision sometimes preferred despite its cost?
- It avoids identification costs and errors, carries no stigma, and builds a broad political constituency, which tends to protect the quality of the service over time.
Seen in UPSC Question Papers
- Prelims 2014 — Banking
Real UPSC previous-year questions whose text uses “Targeting” — proof this word earns its place on your list.
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