The Hindu : New Delhi News : “Large parts of the country not on the development map”

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Sep 08, 2007
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New Delhi

New Delhi

“Large parts of the country not on the development map”

Staff Reporter

“World Bank puts 80 per cent Indians below poverty line”
“India ranks 182nd in public health expenditure”

NEW DELHI: “The World Bank has estimated that over 80 per cent of the Indian population lives under the global poverty line of two dollars a day. The Government’s policies of ‘backing the strong’ have resulted in a collapse of agriculture, a decimation of rural health services and a low rate of rural employment generation with the severely affected sections of society in the hinterlands either taking to the gun or committing suicide,” said Mihir Shah, founder-member and secretary of the non-political grassroots organisation “Samaj Pragati Sahayog”, here on Thursday.

Dr. Shah was delivering the Lovraj Kumar Memorial Lecture for 2007 at India International Centre here.

Titled “Employment Guarantee, Civil Society and the Future of Indian Democracy”, the lecture dealt with the inequitable nature of India’s development and the feasibility of the Government’s showpiece for the rural sector -- the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA).

“India’s public health expenditure was just 0.91 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product. The country ranks 182nd among 188 countries in this respect. Despite the ‘feel good’ buzz across the globe created by India’s macro-economic rates of growth, large parts of the country still don’t find a place on the development map.” The problem, Dr. Shah said, was one of ensuring a bridge between growth and distribution.

“The development planning in post-colonial countries did not weave distribution strategies into its strategies. It was always assumed that the benefits of growth would automatically trickle down to all classes, communities and regions, including the weakest. It should be realised that market forces by themselves do not ensure equitable distribution. Government intervention is required for that,” he said.

According to Dr. Shah, the cardinal factor on which the success of NREGA hinged was the “gram panchayats” being made its chief implementing agency.

“If put in place, the NREGA infrastructure could potentially herald a revolution in rural governance through its mechanisms of transparency, social audit and e-governance.”

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