: The Smart Cities Mission, under which 20 cities in the country have been identified for development and the Amrut Mission under which another 500 cities have been identified, are not likely to help remove the growing inequalities in the different areas of the country, said Amitabh Kundu, retired professor, Centre for Study of Regional Development, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and senior fellow of the Delhi Policy Group.
Prof. Kundu was in the city along with Prof. C. Ramachandraiah of the Centre for Economic and Social Studies, to visit the area earmarked for the development of new capital for Andhra Pradesh.
Prof. Kundu, talking to The Hindu , said before 2003-04, the inequality among States was huge. But from that year the growth rate of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Odisha picked up dramatically. The growth rate of these States was better than the average growth rate of the nation. These States were able to increase their growth rate by attracting more investment. By then land and labour were more costly in the more developed States such as Maharashtra, Punjab and Gujarat.
“The land cost was less, labour force was available at a cheaper rate and the labour laws were more flexible. These were some of the factors that attracted investment to these States,” he said.
Even in the States where the growth rate picked up there was a huge amount of inequality in the different areas. There was a need to address the intra-state inequality, Prof Kundu said. Andhra Pradesh which was a backward state also improved to some extent but from the bottom of the list it climbed up to the middle, he said. Prof. Kundu said investment was needed for the development of infrastructure and generation of jobs. But there would not be much benefit if the investment was centralised. “The investment should be made in backward areas and benefit backward people. Only then will the inequalities be reduced,” he said.
Lessons from
developed countries
He said that the Smart Cities Missions might even increase the inequality between the urban and the rural populations, but the Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency (MUDRA) would be more effective in empowering those from the weaker sections and therefore reduce inequalities.
He said even in the cities the government should address the inequalities prevalent in education and health. In developed counties, the children of the political leaders and the sanitation worker go to the same school and are treated in the same hospital. This was not the case in India where the children of the rich and powerful go to expensive private schools and the children of persons with smaller jobs go to ordinary or government schools that do not have proper teaching faculty of facilities. The private hospitals had the best to offer, but the government hospitals had almost nothing. This increased the average life expectancy of the rich by 15 years, Prof. Kundu said.
