© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
While India has come a long way since 1947, there are miles to go to secure a life of well-being for all, an opportunity for every Indian to develop their fullest human potential through access to good health, education and skills…” The Last Mile has been written by Amarjeet Sinha, a civil servant who has played an important role formulating important social sector programmes like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and National Rural Health Mission. It makes extensive use of data, reports and studies, and draws on the author’s 35-plus years of experience that includes visiting more than 95 percent of India’s districts.
Sinha raises a fundamental question of public policy: should Amrit Kaal India grow by a GDP number, the “5 trillion dollar economy”, or by the well-being of her people by investing in education, health, skills, basic amenities, and transparent governance? He makes a clear choice for the latter. He also lays great emphasis on diversifying the livelihoods base of 24 crore poor people and strengthening their assets base to move them out of perennial poverty. He suggests improving governance not only for “ease of growing” but “ease of living”.
A related issue is public versus private provision of education, health, water, and sanitation. This has become more pertinent in the liberalisation era, with policy shifting towards privatising social services. Sinha, though, makes a strong case for public policy to “ensure that the fruits of quality reach every school and hospital, whether private or public”. He argues that “we need to get out of the binary of public and private and move towards creating community institutions”. He evokes the principle of decentralization and pleads for effective devolution of power to the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) and the Urban Local Bodies.
The book’s central argument — people-centric development — is exemplified in the chapter on a “poverty-free India”. It demonstrates the progress in massive poverty reduction, especially since 2004-05, and points to the daunting challenge of moving the remaining 24 crore people out of poverty. Sinha envisages a clear role for the Indian state, as the market may not be interested in investing in poor people: to harness the resources of women collectives and self-help groups (SHGs) which have already grown hugely in size; community institutions and resources; PRIs and civil society organizations; and Corporate Social Responsibility programmes.
Two chapters analyse how women collectives and SHGs under the National Rural Livelihood Mission have changed the face of rural poverty across Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir, Gujarat and Assam. About 100 million women are organised into 8 million SHGs which are carrying out vibrant economic activities. An example is in the flow of bank credit to women’s SHGs having grown to Rs 6.5 lakh crore between 2014 and 2022, at a 30 percent annual credit growth rate. The non-performing assets of bank loans to SHGs have come down significantly from 7.1 percent in 2012-13 to 2 percent in 2021-22 — much lower than that of the corporate sector. Yet, banks favour big corporates over micro-enterprises and so does industrial policy.
Women’s SHGs have harnessed bank credit to run 24,520 custom hiring centres, rent out agricultural implements and pump sets, provide 2165 transport services in remote and Naxal-affected areas, and run bio-fertilizer units, shops, horticulture, animal husbandry. They have also tapped e-platforms to market products. About 600 SHG products are available on Amazon and Flipkart and about 1080 products on the government e-market. The flow of bank credit to women’s SHGs is no longer confined to Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka (which used to corner 85 per cent of the total bank credit to SHGs in 2013-14). It has grown significantly in Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Assam — the states with higher rural poverty.
Chapters on education, health, and skills show how clear policy goals make a real difference. For example, in 1986, the year of the National Policy on Education (NEP), 69.2 percent of rural females aged six-plus were never enrolled in a school, and all the SC girls in Bihar and ST girls in Andhra Pradesh dropped out of schools. NEP and SSA made a difference. Now there’s almost complete enrolment of boys and girls at the primary level. The drop-out rate has come down dramatically, almost negligible at the lower primary level. Though there are challenges in ensuring a 100 percent transition from lower to upper primary, upper primary to secondary, and from secondary to higher secondary levels.
This book greatly emphasised the period since 2014-15, though 2004-05 may be considered a real departure in New Welfarism in India. A series of important legislations, like the right to work (MGNREGA, 2005), the Right to Forest Act (2006), Right to Education Act (2009), Right to Food (NFSA, 2013), and right to rehabilitations (land compensation Act, 2013) were enacted to provide rights-based development opportunities. An analysis of this New Welfarism is the only missing point of discussion, in an otherwise comprehensive and meaningful book.
