Verdict 2009: Priority- Poverty Eradication
Posted : May 21, 2009 at 1:48 pm [IST]
Why couldn’t India eradicate the poverty in last 62 years? Will it be able to do that in next 62 years? Perhaps the answer is ‘yes’, if the government move ahead with missionary zeal and the large number of visionary leaders in every field of activity in India contribute their best for the same.
Poverty eradication certainly can’t be achieved with charity, doles or only with schemes such as NREGA. The society must show compassion to those who are poor and willing to work to move out of the condition. It should encourage population control too among those who can’t afford to take care of the child they produce. There is no rational logic in allowing such people to keep on adding to the population just on human ground. For such a category of individuals, India too should go for a policy similar to the Chinese one-child policy. If it is done, the prediction of the World Bank’s recently released report ‘Global Economic Prospects for 2009′ will come true. It says a quarter of India’s population will be living in extreme poverty, on less than $1.25 a day, in 2015.
The report provides a dismal picture of the poverty data on India, when India was better than China just 20 years ago. “China had 60.2% of its population living on less than $1.25 a day in 1990, compared to India’s 51.3%. However, 15 years later in 2005, China had 15.9% of its population living in extreme poverty as compared to India’s 41.6% living on less than $1.25 a day, the international poverty line. The number of Indians living in extreme poverty were 43.6 crore (51.3%) in 1990, 45.6 crore (41.6%) in 2005, and will be 31.3 crore (25.4%) in 2015.” How do we rate our governments of the period that went all-out with its populist schemes to please the various vote banks of the society?
The solution lies in educating properly the whole lot (nothing less than 100%) at the bottom of the pyramid at least up to class X level. Those, who will not be good enough to go for higher education must have some or the other skill through 20, 000 vocational training centres available in every corner of the country. Even if the government spends Rs 60,000 crore in the centres, it will be of immense worth. It must also include adult education providing additional skills and other information necessary to build a knowledgeable society using technology. Can the new government take up this mission on priority?
A drive for creating ‘Information Kiosks’ with broadband facilities in every village of the country will also achieve the productivity push, as many agree that a single technology of the cell phones has brought about.
India still lives in villages. With the reducing landholding, the farming is losing attraction. But a scientific approach to farming that can be specifically provided to each and every farmer in every district of the country can bring about another green, white, or pink revolution. Why can’t what some educated farmers have achieved be done by the rest? Why can’t we agree to the IITian mechanical engineer who has become a successful farmer and says, ‘India can produce 180 tonnes of tomatoes per acre, but manages to produce only about 6 tonnes’? If his recent experiment with mustard yielded 1,450 kg per acre, which he claims is four times the highest yield so far in India, why can’t it be done by other farmers?
But the government will have to think over some burning questions and find solutions. Why can what the farmers produce reach the market fast and fresh? Why couldn’t the promised connectivity to each village under ‘Bharat Nirman’ be achieved?
Why should it be easier for a buyer in Mumbai or Bangalore or Chennai to order parts from China than to buy them from a supplier in the low-wage cities of UP or Bihar? Ask yourself how long it takes for a truck to move from Patna to Pune and you will have a part of the answer.
Will the new government be different and find a fast solution to it? It can’t eradicate poverty without the will and change of mindset. And I doubt there. I wish I get proved wrong.
- Indra
Category: Government Policy/Administration |
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