Recent visit of our Prime Minister to the United States has
received bundles of accolades and heaps of admiration for raising the status of
our Nation to a new height of immense capabilities. It could have been a usual
and routine visit like those of the past, but, one must admit that this time
our leader’s visit has given a new dimension to our level. Nation could have
made a huge celebration as the mood has formed in the air and hopefully this
time our leader will get a pompous welcome back when he returns and steps on his
motherland.
Our government has successfully placed Digital India program
in the western world. Our leaders have rightly attracted the IT who’s who to
invest in India. There are true reasons of celebrations for the IT corporate
kings for they are being welcomed to explore one of the largest Greenfield areas
with almost one-fifth of world population. Jubilation is such, that one proud
US citizen doesn’t hesitate to embrace Indian tri-colour in his Facebook
profile picture. Fever is now viral.
Our leaders are confidently upbeat as they have already
planned for broadband connectivity to 2.5 lakhs gram panchayats with high-speed
internet by December next. National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) program target
to cover 7.5 lakh kms all across India.
Meyer and Birdsall and Tim Light carried a survey and
estimated the number of Middle Income population to be about 70 millions in
2009-10. These groups as well as the World Bank estimated in their 2011 reports
that this middle income group can be double by 2015 and add another 500 million
people by 2025 if India’s economy continues to grow per projections. This would
make it, with China, the world’s largest middle income group.
Do we have reasons to be proud enough looking at these
figures? I think so. But, but as me always obsessed to look against the tide
there are enough reasons to bite our fingers too.
According to the World Bank, the world had 872.3 million
people below the new poverty line, of which 179.6 million people lived in India
in 2011 (based on revised methodology) . This means 17.5% of total world’s
population below poverty line belong to us. In 2012, the Indian government
stated 21.9% of its population is below its official poverty limit against the
world average of 18%.
Towns and cities make more than two thirds of the Indian GDP
with less than a third of the population living in them. About 28% of the
population live in the urban areas. These means with three-fourths of the
population living in rural India contributes to only one-third of the national
income. Main reason for rural India’s poor performance in terms of income is
the fact that it is mostly dependent on agriculture. Worst is that the
agricultural growth has taken the back-seat in the recent years. Economic Survery 2015 says agricultural sector
that engages 49% of workforce of the country grew at 1.1% in 2014-15. First
three years of the 12th Five-Year plan (2012-17) rate of agri-GDP
growth turns out to be meager 2% against a target of at least 4%.
For us rainfall still remains a vital input for agricultural
output. Added up to it, is the deteriorating agricultural productivity with
such a huge work force. This deterioration can be due to lack of adequate
scientific practices supplemented by heavy doses of chemical fertilizers and
harmful pesticides (in pursuit of achieving higher yields). Poor harvest and
falling prices will make the rural population more impatient and disillusioned
and might further retard private investments in this sector. All these will
affect further poverty alleviation process.
Need of the hour is to attract more investments in water
supply, agri-R&D, farm mechanization, rural road, rural electrification,
etc. Empowering the rural population is the need of the hour. Internet
connectivity is important but more important is the road connectivity,
sufficient electricity supply and adequate water.
Last but not the least, what you will do with the computer
or lap-top if your children are not educated, not properly feed, not properly
cared? Just take a glance at the figures below:
How Countries Spend
Their Money (in percentage)
|
Countries
|
Military
|
Health
|
Education
|
|
USA
|
19.3
|
19.3
|
17.1
|
|
Canada
|
6.3
|
17.8
|
12.7
|
|
China
|
18.2
|
9.9
|
12.1
|
|
Japan
|
6.4
|
17.9
|
10.5
|
|
Australia
|
7.1
|
17
|
13.3
|
|
Russia
|
18.7
|
10.8
|
11.5
|
|
France
|
5.4
|
16.7
|
11.4
|
|
UK
|
6.3
|
16.3
|
11.5
|
|
India
|
18.6
|
3.4
|
3.9
|
|
Germany
|
3.3
|
17.9
|
9.5
|
Priorities are clearly reflected. I am not going into the
arguments of which one should come first or second in the priority list. There
are real think tanks to guide the leaders in the right direction.
I only feel that we could have a better bargain if we could
make our country a more Empowered Nation with Empowered villages & Empowered
Population.
