I recently started reading Gurucharan Das’s “India Grows At
night”. I am yet to finish the book but I am sure it will certainly be a great read. The basic
premise of the book is this: India’s growth in last couple of decades is potentially reaching its end point. The growth happened in spite of weak, corrupt and
generally incompetent government and unless the situation with governance
changes in near future we will be staring at not-so-bright future. Mr. Das is
much more positive and optimistic in his assertions that my previous sentence
suggest but we are really running out ropes to climb.
I recently moved to India and I see how things are stretched
to the limit. The government is responding at certain levels. Roads are getting
built and fly-overs are taking shape but it’s coming too late and too little.
The population is growing so fast, in spite of fall in birth rate, and
government is miserably failing to meet even the basic needs. The thing is that in old days government not
functioning was given and it didn’t affect the normal life as much since there
were few opportunities and there wasn’t a sense of how much potential we have.
But people have understood the potential. Small set of population has done
exceedingly well in last ten years. The money was made in honest business
(construction, services, entrepreneurship, land etc.) and the money is very apparent.
And I am not even talking about folks who drive Audis and BMWs. The upper
middle class and the middle class are having a lot more luxurious life than
what was possible twenty years ago. The foreign trips to Sri Lanka and
South-East Asia are very common and having multiple maids at home to take care
is a norm. And I think those are all good signs. The money in most such cases
is made honestly and is results of hard work. These people have shown appetite
for opportunity and jumped on it. But there is still a large majority left in
lurch and to bring these millions of people to a respectable living condition
(i.e. way above the BPL level that government insist on referring to when it
comes to talking about poverty)we need healthy government functioning competently.
The middle class and upper middle class that is enjoying the
fruits of liberal economic policy made their money in spite of government. The
money is either coming from US through BPO or hybrid outsourcing model or money
is made by driving on bad roads, facing power shortage and running around in
the maze of unlimited bureaucracy. The airports are congested, the railways are
overflowing and large scale industrialization plans are hidden away on environment
minister’s desk. The inflation is sky rocketing beyond imagination and
comprehension. Given these issues
continue to not only persist but developments have been very slow, how far can
middle class can go without hitting the wall?
But I think even after hitting the wall they will survive. They
are better educated and there will always be some or other opportunity for them
as India will be forced to integrate with world economy. It is the poor that I
am worried about. It is the maids and paper-boys, the cleaning ladies and her children that are of most concern.
For example, more than 80% of road projects are well behind
their schedule and planning commission has admitted that port development projects
in last planning commission period will not be completed on time. How does it
affect poor? As per the World Economic
Forum in its 2011 report on infrastructure, 163 people are lifted out of
poverty for every million dollars spent on road development.
Primary education should be the gravest of concerns for next
Indian government. The private sector is proliferating at a staggering rate
since majority of the public schools i.e. government run schools are in
shambles. The private schooling is very expensive for majority of the people.
In any case, providing quality education at a very reasonable rate is one of
the basic duties of any government. Education shouldn’t be a privilege; it
should be a fundamental right. Yet our government has failed miserably. The
teachers are either absent or not hired or worse, untrained. This reflects in
student’s passing percentage. Only 42% students passed the Math exams in class
8th in government schools. In
2012 only 30% of Standard 3rd students could read Standard 1st
text. Such grim statistics are many.
Similar situation is in public health sector. As per KPMG
research the infant mortality in India is 52 per 1000 births. To give the
readers more perspective the same statistics stands at 18 per 1000 births in
China. Hospital bed density is 9 in India, which means there are only 9
hospital beds available for every 10,000 people. The number stands at 30 in
China. Interestingly the total government expenditure on health care as percent
of GDP in 2007 is 4.1 in India and in China it is 4.3!
I don’t want to make this blog full of statistics. The
readers are well versed in googling correct terms and read the publications.
But I wanted to cover certain basic tenets on which a country can assess its
progress and unfortunately, our government is miserably failing in those
indicators. What’s worse is unless these basic issues are fixed - our children are
born in safe and healthy environment, they are educated decently and provided
means to earn livelihood, we will keep stumbling in the future.
And I haven't even talked about the inflation monster that's wrecking havoc in last five years.
Sources:
1)
“New roads to economic growth”
2)
Education’s primary problems
3)
Why the state of India’s primary education is
shocking
http://www.firstpost.com/india/why-the-state-of-indias-primary-education-is-shocking-598011.html?utm_source=ref_article
http://www.firstpost.com/india/why-the-state-of-indias-primary-education-is-shocking-598011.html?utm_source=ref_article
4)
Healthcare: Reaching out to the masses
http://www.kpmg.de/docs/Healthcare_in_India.pdf
