Govt approves continuation of DISHA scheme

• Union Minister of State for Law and Justice Arjun Ram Meghwal approved the continuation of the Central Sector Scheme ‘Designing Innovative Solutions for Holistic Access to Justice (DISHA)’.

• It is restructured as DISHA 2.0 for a period of five years from April 1, 2026 to March 31, 2031 co-terminus with the XVI Finance Commission cycle.

• The scheme has a total approved financial outlay of Rs 255 crore, to be funded entirely through 100 per cent Gross Budgetary Support of the government of India. 

What is DISHA?

• The Preamble to the Indian Constitution recognises justice as one of the foremost deliverables to be secured for the people of India. 

• Article 39A, enunciated in the Constitution of India, obligates the State to ensure access to justice and free legal aid to those deprived due to economic, geographical disparities, etc. 

• Access to justice is recognised as a fundamental right under Article 14 and 21 of the Indian Constitution.

• Building upon this mandate, Department of Justice (DoJ) created the scheme — Designing Innovative Solutions and Holistic Access to Justice (DISHA) — for a period of five years from 2021 to 2026. 

• It aims to strengthen the access to justice for all citizens, in alignment with the provisions of the Legal Services Authorities (LSA) Act, 1987.

Components of DISHA:

i) Tele-Law: Citizens are connected with panel lawyers to obtain pre-litigation legal advice through video or tele-conferencing using a network of about 2.50 lakh Common Service Centres (CSCs) operating at the Gram Panchayat level across 784 districts, including 112 Aspirational Districts and 500 Aspirational Blocks, in 36 states/UTs. More than 1.13 crore pre-litigation advices have been provided under the programme.

ii) Nyaya Bandhu: Through this programme, a pro bono culture is being promoted among advocates, law students. Under this programme, pro bono advocates provide free legal assistance and representation in the courts to the eligible beneficiaries under Section 12 of the LSA Act, 1987. As many as 10,681 advocates have been registered under the programme.

iii) Legal Literacy and Legal Awareness Programme: It promotes partnerships with ministries, departments, institutions and schools for capacity building of grassroots legal workers and dissemination of legal awareness/literacy. The programme has reached 1.24 crore beneficiaries.

• As on May 31, 2026, the DISHA scheme achieved a cumulative outreach of over 2.37 crore beneficiaries.

Highlights of DISHA 2.0:

• DISHA 2.0 is a meticulously rationalised and restructured scheme.

• DISHA 2.0 aims to fulfil the constitutional mandate of “access to justice” to the people of India as enunciated under the Preamble and Articles 14, 21 and 39A of the Constitution of India and supports the implementation of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16 (SDG-16) on Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. 

• It will have a new component, namely, VIDHI (Vision for Integrated Delivery of Harmonised Legal Initiatives) Sanjeevani. 

VIDHI Sanjeevani:

• It is a centralised digital platform introduced as a fourth component for end-to-end programme monitoring and data-driven decision-making. 

It will feature:

i) An integrated dashboard consolidating real-time data streams from all four components.

ii) Integration of the AI-powered multilingual Nyaya Setu Chatbot (developed with BHASHINI) for legal query resolution and data analytics and reporting.

• DISHA 2.0 targets to achieve a cumulative outreach of three crore beneficiaries across all the four programme components.