Think of a rural re-orientation

Coming back home, I checked out some of the data. It turned out that between 1960 and 1990, the improvement in social indicators in India compared well with the nics. Their levels were higher in 1960, as also in 1990, but India had improved as much. If not more than many of them, as also mainly with domestic resources, since in the sixties and seventies between a third and half of their investment was financed from abroad, as compared to less than ten percent in India. Apparently in some cases the Japanese ‘‘influence’’, before 1960, mattered, although data was difficult to come by, since regular censuses were not there. In fact in countries like China and Pakistan censuses are not regularly done even later. We are told, for example, that life expectancy at birth, the most important indicator of welfare in India, in 1990 was only 59, but in Thailand 66, Malaysia 70, Philip-pines 64, Indonesia 62 and India didworse than the average ‘developing country’, where this number was 63. But then in 1960 India was much worse than these countries and its level was 43; while South Korea was 54, Thailand 52, Malaysia 54, Philippines 54, Indonesia 41 and the developing country average was 46. The improvement for 1960-90, is 16 points for India, 17 for South Korea, 16 Thailand, 16 Malaysia, 11 Philippines, 21 Indonesia and the developing country average went up by 17. In improvement of the primary enrollment ratio India does better than all these countries apart from Indonesia.

In other indicators the picture is mixed, India doing better than some and worse than others. I knew Mahabubul Haq. He was Pakistan’s Planning and Finance Minister when I led the first Indian planning delegation to that country and later we worked together in the preparation for the Rio Conference. I sent word to him on the ‘change in indicators’ question. This year’s HDR makes two changes. The HD index is standardised for the country’s level ofdevelopment. India then comes out well. A positive number means you are doing well. In these countries only India and China have a positive number of 1. The other countries have negative numbers in the range of 10 to 13. A rate of change of Hdi is also worked out, but, alas, here while for all these countries progress in the nineties is measured, for India for some reason, the 91 census numbers are repeated through 95. For large countries, it is likely that the UNDP checks the data. For India, however, for many critical areas the 91 numbers are repeated. It is likely that given the extremely conservative nature of our statistical agencies, the census percentages have not been revised on the basis of sample surveys and official data sources.

The important point, however, is not international comparisons, but faster progress on social facilities in India’s rural areas. Here it is true that levels of achievements in many countries are ahead of us and a lot has to be learnt both from successes and mistakes thatothers have made as also in different areas within the country. Here the issues are whether transferring these services to the panchayati raj agencies has been done in all parts of the country properly, the large resource transfer during the last three years in the basic common minimum services programme and the manner in which it has been used and the relationship between governments, NGO’s and the private sector. The focus has to shift from making dubious international comparisons to solving our own problems.