Growth with equity

India has seen strong economic performance over the past decade. Per capita incomes have grown by almost 4 percent a year and the percentage of people below the poverty line has dropped falling from 37.5 percent in 1990 to 26 percent in 2000. Remaining India’s greater concern to achieve social justice include growing regional disparities, high rates of undernutrition, large numbers of children out of school, poor health indicators, and wide disparities in social and economic indicators, particularly for women, girls, and members of low-caste and tribal populations - says the UN Millennium Project Report. Investing in Development, the UN Millennium Project report launched in New Delhi on 2 February 2005 by head of the Millennium Project Jeffry D. Sachs.

The report outlines that growing regional disparities in India. The northern states are among the weakest economic performers in the country, while the southern and coastal states are generally enjoying rapid economic growth. Since the waning of the growth spurt induced in Punjab and Haryana by the Green Revolution, rapid growth in India since the early 1980s has been driven largely by the big coastal urban centers and information technology–based cities, such as Bangalore and Hyderabad in the south.

Other case of concern of India, the report reveals that it faces several challenges in access to health services for the population, especially the poor. While India has a well developed primary health system in theory, in practice access to services is compromised by high rates of health worker absenteeism and often inadequate supplies and poor infrastructure. This leads the majority of the population to turn to largely unregulated private providers. India today has 4.6 million people with HIV, the second highest national number of HIV-positive people in the world, after South Africa (UNAIDS 2004). The infection is concentrated in groups at high risk of infection, such as injecting drug users and sex workers and their clients. But it could spread to the general population without significantly expanded HIV prevention efforts and a concerted focus on battling stigma. India is also one of 22 TB high burden countries that together account for 80 percent of global TB infections. Despite a strong effort to provide DOTS, only 31 percent of cases are detected in DOTS programs, so most people with TB do not have access to the most effective treatment (WHO 2004).

Further the report reveals that discrimination against girls and women remains pervasive, reflected in the systematic under allocation of food and education to women and girls within households. Literacy rates among girls, though increasing, are much lower than among boys (map 11.2). Women have very limited access to sexual and reproductive health services, limiting their ability to make decisions about their own fertility. Minority groups (such as India’s scheduled castes and scheduled tribes) do not have equitable access to public services or infrastructures, restricting their ability to participate in the economy are another area of concern India should invest to attain equity.
The report suggests that an MDG-based investment strategy for India needs to include the following elements:

• Health. Basic health infrastructure and services, especially sexual and reproductive health services, require scaling up, particularly in rural areas. Investments in health need to rise to strengthen human resource capacity, provide needed supplies, and build the infrastructure required to deliver essential health services. In addition, there must be a sharper focus on working with private providers on priority health programs, such as expanding DOTS, since those providers deliver most of India’s health services but they are subject to little regulation or oversight to ensure quality services. India needs to make a large investment in HIV prevention to forestall further transmission to the general population— and to provide treatment to those requiring it.

• Education. Given the challenges in scaling up the quantity and quality of education services, a full complement of investments will be necessary, including demand-side interventions, improvements in systems of management and accountability, infrastructure, teacher training, and funding for other recurrent costs. Gender-parity targets will probably require extensive support through special subsidies targeted at girls.

• Rural investment strategies. India’s economy remains highly agrarian, with comparatively poor infrastructure. Many areas require significant improvements in roads, transport, electricity, other energy, water and sanitation facilities, environmental management, and agricultural research and development. Falling water tables, a growing concern, should be addressed through harvesting rainwater, naturally recharging aquifers, and managing demand.

• Public Services. Improvements in service delivery and accountability are needed to ensure that the investments reach intended recipients. 166 Part 2 Country-level processes to achieve the Millennium Development Goals This requires increasing investments in information systems and modern management systems to track disbursements and to remove bureaucratic bottlenecks. It also requires the promotion of transparency in government procedures, and encouragement for local communities to participate in implementing public investments.

• Targeting underprivileged populations. Resources need to reach the least privileged groups, including women and girls in low-income families, the so-called low caste and outcaste communities, and tribal populations. Systematic targeted investments and educational campaigns are needed to provide these communities with basic social services, skills, and income-generating opportunities to enable them to benefit from the country’s economic growth. The foregoing discussions enlighten that growth with out equity widen injustice. To access full report click  here 

review by Venkatesan S.