21 Oct 2026GS4Topic
Case studies: welfare, empathy and public pressure
Previous year questions
3 as set1 · UPSC 201720 marks250 words
You are the head of the Human Resources department of an organisation. One day one of the workers died on duty. His family was demanding compensation. However, the company denied compensation because it was revealed in investigation that he was drunk at the time of the accident. The workers of the company went on to strike demanding compensation for the family of the deceased. The Chairman of the management board has asked for your recommendation. What recommendation would you provide to the management? Discuss the merits and demerits of each of the recommendations.
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The family has done nothing wrong, yet the worker's drinking cannot be ignored. I must separate the family's right from the worker's fault, and end the strike without suggesting that safety rules do not matter.
Options and their merits and demerits
Uphold the denial: It firmly shows that drinking on duty is unacceptable. But the law on employees' compensation holds the employer liable when an accident causes death, even if the worker was drunk. The company would lose in law, prolong the strike and punish a widow and children for the worker's fault.
Pay all that is demanded: This ends the strike quickly and shows compassion, but drinking on duty then carries no consequence, and workers may conclude that strikes beat rules.
Refer to arbitration: A neutral hearing is fair, but the family waits for months without income while the strike continues.
Pay the legal dues and act on the cause: This is lawful, humane and settles the strike on principle. Its demerit is the cost, and the appearance of rewarding a drunk worker.
My recommendation
The last. I would release the statutory compensation within days, as a legal right and not a favour. I would also state plainly that drinking on duty remains a disciplinary offence. I would ask why a drunk worker reached the machine, since a lapse by his supervisor is the company's own failing. Breath tests at the gate, with counselling for workers who drink, would prevent the next death, and a job for a dependant would steady the family.
A worker's fault may cost him his record, but it must not cost his family their right.
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Decode
A recommendation, with merits and demerits of each option. The trap is that the denial is weak in law, because a death on duty attracts compensation even when the worker was drunk.
Implicit demand
The examiner wants the family's right kept apart from the worker's fault, and a way to end the strike on principle and not by surrender.
Architecture
A short framing introduction, four options with a merit and a demerit each, a clear recommendation with concrete steps, then a verdict.
Articulation
Each option is a full point so that it carries its own reasoning. Money line: A worker's fault may cost him his record, but it must not cost his family their right.
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Law and rules
The Employees' Compensation Act, 1923, Section 3: the employer is liable on death even where the worker was under the influence of drink, though not for lesser injuries caused that way. The provision now sits within the Code on Social Security, 2020.
The Industrial Relations Code, 2020, which replaced the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, governs strikes, notice and conciliation.
Employees' State Insurance dependants' benefit, payable on death in employment to covered workers.
Concepts to use
A legal entitlement is different from an ex gratia payment, and a right cannot be traded for good behaviour.
Duty and consequence: the duty to pay holds whatever its effect on discipline, while the company stays free to deter drinking by other means.
Root cause analysis in safety management asks why the system let an impaired worker reach the machine.
Employee assistance programmes and breath testing at entry as preventive measures.
2 · UPSC 201820 marks250 words
It is a State where prohibition is in force. You are recently appointed as the Superintendent of Police of a district notorious for illicit distillation of liquor. The illicit liquor leads to many deaths, reported and unreported, and causes a major problem for the district authorities. The approach till now had been to view it as a law and order problem and tackle it accordingly. Raids, arrests, police cases, criminal trials – all these had only limited impact. The problem remains as serious as ever. Your inspections show that the parts of the district where the distillation flourishes are economically, industrially and educationally backward. Agriculture is badly affected by poor irrigation facilities. Frequent clashes among communities gave boost to illicit distillation. No major initiatives had taken place in the past either from the government's side or from social organizations to improve the lot of the people. Which new approach will you adopt to bring the problem under control?
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Hooch tragedies such as Saran in Bihar in 2022 show that raids alone fail. A poor family that loses its living to the police simply returns to the still. I would treat this as a development and public health problem with an enforcement edge.
Break the supply chain, not the village: Raids on poor brewers have failed for years. I would target financiers, suppliers of methanol and spirit, and transporters, using informers, call records and a district control room. I would also act against police personnel who take protection money, because distillation at this scale cannot survive without collusion.
Save lives first: Many deaths come from methanol mixed in to raise strength, so I would stock antidotes in every primary health centre and train staff to recognise poisoning. A helpline that does not treat reporting families as suspects would bring out the unreported cases.
Give the distillers a living: As Superintendent of Police I cannot build canals. I would convene the District Magistrate and press for irrigation and wage work under the rural employment guarantee law. Loans through women's self help groups and skill centres for youth would follow. Surrendering a still would be the entry to these schemes.
Make the community a partner: Clashes among communities fuel distilling, so I would form peace committees with elders from each side. In Nellore in Andhra Pradesh in the early 1990s, village women turned a literacy drive into a campaign against arrack, which no raid had achieved.
A district that gives the distiller a better living than the still has solved what raids only moved from village to village.
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Decode
One approach question with a hidden second part: what a Superintendent of Police can actually do, because the roots lie in development that other departments control.
Implicit demand
The examiner wants a move from a law and order view to a development and public health view, without giving up enforcement, with the officer acting through convergence of departments.
Architecture
A hook showing that enforcement alone fails, four points covering enforcement, health, livelihood and community, then a verdict.
Articulation
Every point carries a concrete action or an example from the field. Money line: A district that gives the distiller a better living than the still has solved what raids only moved from village to village.
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Law and policy
Article 47 of the Constitution directs the State to work towards prohibition of intoxicating drinks injurious to health.
The Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016 and the Gujarat Prohibition Act, 1949 are the main prohibition laws.
Recent hooch tragedies: Saran in Bihar in 2022 and Kallakurichi in Tamil Nadu in 2024.
The Aspirational Districts Programme ranks backward districts on health, education and infrastructure, and gives a ready platform for convergence.
Concepts to use
Supply side and demand side control: enforcement curbs supply, while treatment and awareness curb demand.
Methanol poisoning causes blindness and death, and is treated with fomepizole or ethanol as an antidote, with dialysis in severe cases.
Community policing, where the police work with elders, women's groups and panchayats for information and trust.
Relative deprivation: illegal livelihoods grow where lawful ones are missing.
3 · UPSC 201920 marks250 words
You are heading the rescue operations in an area affected by severe natural calamity. Thousands of people are rendered homeless and deprived of food, drinking water and other basic amenities. Rescue work has been disrupted by heavy rainfall and damage to supply routes. The local people are seething with anger against the delayed limited rescue operations. When your team reaches the affected area, the people there heckle and even assault some of the team members. One of your team members is even severely injured. Faced with this crisis, some team members plead with you to call off the operations fearing threats to their life. In such trying circumstances, what will be your response? Examine the qualities of a public servant which will be required to manage the situation.
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In Kerala in 2018, rescue worked because local people stood with the rescuers. Anger at delay is understandable, and my task is to turn it into cooperation.
(a) My response
Calling off the operation would abandon thousands, and carrying on unchanged would risk more injuries. I would pull back only from the hostile spot, send the injured colleague to hospital with an escort, and return within hours with police protection.
Talk to the anger: I would meet elders, panchayat members and youth leaders at once and accept that relief was late. I would then explain the broken supply routes and give honest times for food and water. Local volunteers would then distribute relief beside my team, which gives the crowd a stake in order.
Use every route: Where roads are cut, I would ask the District Magistrate for boats, helicopters and the National Disaster Response Force, and serve the worst hit pockets first.
Care for the team: I would rotate exhausted members, arrange counselling, and refuse to punish anger in the moment. Any case would be only for organised violence, filed later.
(b) Qualities required
Empathy lets the officer hear grief behind abuse, composure keeps judgement steady when a crowd turns hostile, and courage with firmness refuses withdrawal. Honest communication wins trust, since admitting delay disarms anger, and accountability means owning the system's failure instead of passing blame down. Leadership shows when the officer shares the risk by going in first.
A public servant who stays, listens and delivers earns the trust that no order can command.
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Decode
Two tasks: a decision under threat, and a list of qualities. Both must link, so the qualities are drawn from the actions taken.
Implicit demand
The trap is a false choice between the safety of staff and the duty to victims. The examiner wants a third course that protects both.
Architecture
A framing introduction, a response in four parts with the options weighed in a line, a heading for qualities in connected prose, then a verdict.
Articulation
Qualities are tied to actions so that they read as conduct and not as a list of virtues. Money line: A public servant who stays, listens and delivers earns the trust that no order can command.
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Law and guidance
The Disaster Management Act, 2005, Section 51, punishes obstruction of an officer or employee carrying out disaster duties.
National Disaster Management Authority guidelines and the Incident Response System, which fix roles and command during a disaster.
The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, 2015 to 2030, which India has endorsed.
Examples to use
Kerala floods of 2018, where fishermen used their own boats alongside official teams.
Uttarakhand floods of 2013, where delayed relief in remote valleys produced local anger.
Cyclone Fani in Odisha in 2019, where early evacuation kept loss of life low.
Concepts to use
Emotional intelligence, as described by Daniel Goleman: self awareness, self regulation and empathy.
Duty of care towards staff, together with the duty owed to victims.
Trust as the working currency of crisis communication.