The idea of universal basic income (UBI) has been assuming great importance in today’s world because the existing welfare schemes have failed in addressing the problem of poverty effectively. The existing schemes are generally mired in red-tapism, data manipulation, exclusion error, corruption, high leakages and high administrative and implementation costs. The system of UBI overcomes above issues through (i) its feature of being un-conditional and universal, and (ii) through transfer of a guaranteed income directly to the beneficiaries. In this context, the paper concludes that UBI can be a good alternative to all the existing welfare schemes to reduce poverty in India. However, the introduction of UBI currently faces many practical difficulties and hence it should be implemented only in a gradual manner.