Bhubaneswar: It is often misunderstood that economic growth is mostly like an arithmetic inevitability which is bound to happen. Fifty years ago, the per capita income of an average South Korean, Chinese and Indian was the same. To analyse the quality of life now, it took fifty years for South Korea to become 14 times richer, China to be almost fife times richer than India on the basis of the per capita income. So it is important to understand that economics is not an arithmetic inevitability but an outcome of deliberate, focused, effective policy making.
Looking at the economic growth of India in the recent past, it is an entirely democratic example. India is going through a very unique situation in terms of its economic growth. While it is increasingly impressive and sustainable in the last about thirty years, there are certain very crucial trajectories that come to notice. At the same time policy making does not change the scenario overnight, it requires a longer process and time for structural policy making. It also requires sufficient and adequate capital expenditure from the government. The active participation of the government is needed for incurring many fixed costs like setting up infrastructure, connectivity etc.
The economic growth is not just dependent on GDP growth rate but there is much more aspect to it. The quality of life is much beyond the value added to the economy. India is twenty years behind China economically but according to the human development indicators the gap is only 7-8 years. So our country is doing much more to generate economic growth as compared to the resources that we have. The core factor behind this is that we are an electoral politics and the nature of democracy. Here, all the three tiers of our governance focus on the economic growth of the country.
The human development indicator includes measures of education, health care, gender equality, and so on. It is a measure that is composite and way beyond only GDP. As for the sustainable development goal – eradication of poverty, India is doing better than some of the economically affluent nations like South Africa, Brazil. So it is not about having the resources but about how it is used to attain the goal. Now India’ s absolute poverty rate is below 3 percent. After decades of ‘ garibi hatao abhiyan’ we have almost managed to achieve the goal of eradication of poverty.
Another sustainable development goal is Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR). Maternal mortality rate is the number of women who die during childbirth for every thousand life births. The health care facility is growing all over the world, the healthy infrastructure, the medical care, quality of care and medication is improving so the mothers and the children are living longer or least affected by diseases across the globe. When it comes to India, it is reducing the Maternal Mortality Rate more than twice as fast as the global average. With the case of infant mortality rate the changes that are seen across India along with the economic growth is magical as it is crashing as a miracle. States like Odisha, Jharkhand etc are doing exceptionally well in this regard.
The western press is propagating narratives like India is getting intolerant, violent, bossy etc. So it is very well possible that the citizens of the country get puzzled whether there could be any empirical basis to these narratives. Looking at the data in recent years the number of riots, street violence registered are less over the decades. During the late 80s India was grappling with about more than one lakh riots in a year. There has been a structural decline since then, from the early 90s there is a steady decline. The study shows that there has been a rising opportunity cost violence, riots or street violence in the country. As research states, the tolerance for street violence has come down over the period of time because there is more to lose for the people which is called economic opportunity costs. Presently, India is far more peaceful than in the last fifty years. Today the time is such, we are living in a time of hyper connectivity, cellphones, internet, social media etc. So instigating a violence or a riot is much easier than ever before, one violence is to multiply to many. But the data measure objectively that Indians and society in India, streets, community as a whole in terms of physical violence of this nature is less than ever.
Crime against women, particularly rapes, across the states of the country, irrespective of the political parties in power, thare is a structural break in the number of rapes in the country. There is a great contribution in this factor is the building of toilets in rural India and reduction of open defecation. This step, as supported by research, has reduced rapes by 14 percent and assault by 22 percent in rural India. It indicates the quality of life of the average Indian is changing rapidly. Though building of toilets are mostly looked at as a health aspect to make India open defecation free, by focusing on infant mortality, neonatal mortality, maternal mortality, other water and airborne infections. But the issue of gender violence and its connection to free toilet building by the government policies are unintended scopes that have been addressed as byproducts.
India focuses on the Atma Nirbhar Bharat Policy to improve economic growth. There are certain sectors that are more strategic than the others because in these sectors we cannot be too dependent on external sources. Food is among the most necessary sectors of those. The food security index of India states we were producing only 23 percent of our food grains consumption in the 70s but now we are in abundance as the production rate has gone up to 126 if we are consuming 100. We produce much more than we consume. So the priorities in policy making with regard to agriculture is no more yield related but it is about distribution and storage system. The import of food grains in India has come down to 2.3 percent as it was 34 percent about fifty years back.
In the energy security sector, the per capita energy consumption is rising. India is a growing nation and the people are consuming a lot of energy. This rise in energy consumption will continue to rise as we have just out of poverty. Energy consumption is the core driver in improving lifestyle other than the basic materials. When we talk about the import of energy that we consume, that is 34 percent of the energy which is imported. It is a very large amount as we are a growing economy we continue to consume more energy for our growth. This kind of dependency on external forces / countries are not welcoming. India is a rapidly growing economy and a properly planned policy making it will reach its end goal as per the targeted time frame.
-OdishaAge
