New Delhi
22 September 2007
India is home to the largest number of billionaires in Asia, according
to the Forbes magazine. Only four countries -- Turkey, Russia, Germany and the United
States -- have more billionaires than India. 2007 is a landmark year because the
population of millionaires in India crossed the one-lakh mark. Strong economic growth
and a robust performance in the stock markets are responsible for the number of high net
worth individuals, with a net asset of at least one million dollars, to increase by 20.5 per
cent to 1,00,015, reads the World Wealth Report released by Merrill Lynch and
Capgemini on June 28 this year.
On August 9, the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector
released the Report on Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in the
Unorganised Sector. The 376-page document said that 836 million Indians, or 77 per cent
of India's population, earn less than Rs 20 per day. They are the officially-designated
"poor and vulnerable segment of the Indian population". Their number is equal to the
combined population of the United States, Indonesia, Brazil and Russia. They can barely
afford the minimum calorific intake and other requirements. About 79 per cent of
unorganised workers, 88 per cent of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, 80 per
cent of the Other Backward Classes and 84 per cent of the Muslims belong to this
category of the poor and vulnerable. The much acclaimed and feted economic growth of
India seems to have left them untouched.
Dr Arjun K Sengupta cannot agree more. Surveying the Delhi skyline from his office
perched on the 19th floor of Jawahar Vyapar Bhawan, the 70-year-old chairman of the
National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector concurs that three-
fourths of India's population has indeed been bypassed by the high rate of economic
growth. "[The] unmistakale lesson from this is that our growth has benefited the middle
and high income significantly but the poor and vulnerable people, they have remained
poor and vulnerable, they have been bypassed by this growth," he said in a
conversation with this newspaper.
Dr Sengupta says that the number of the extremely poor (earning Rs nine per day) and
poor (Rs 12 per day) has come down in the last decade but there has a substantial
increase in the population of the marginal (Rs 15 per day income) and vulnerable (Rs 20
per day income) segment of population. The percentage of population of the extremely
poor and poor has dropped from 30.7 per cent in 1993-1994 to 21.8 per cent in 2004-2005
but the percentage of the maginal and vulnerable has risen from 51.2 per cent to 55 per
cent in the corresponding period. In comparison, the number of middle-income (earning
Rs 37 per day) and high-income (Rs 93 per day) Indians has shot up from 18 per cent in
1993-1994 to 23 per cent in 2004-2005. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rode to power
on the strength of Aam Aadmi (common man) but the policies of economic liberalisation,
which he scripted as the Union Minister of Finance in the early 1990s, have been partial
to the middle- and high-income Indians. The rich have got richer. The poor have
remained poor. Numbers do not lie.
Dr Sengupta acknowledges that the "coalition of the downtrodden", a phrase he employs
to describe the people designated as extremely poor, poor, marginal and vulnerable,
has very little to cheer about. "Rs 20 per day consumption does not allow any person to
have even a modicum of saving, modicum of expenditure on education [or] health ...
there is very little investment they can make, they are just meeting their daily
requirements." If that were not enough, the Report on Conditions of Work and Promotion
of Livelihoods in the Unorganised Sector suggests congruence of income poor and
socially marginalised and vulnerable groups. "They are poor but they are also socially
discriminated, they also have serious problems of social heirarchy. This is the group
which has not been able to take advantage of the major economic growth that this
country has experienced." He adds that three-fourths of India's population has been
bypassed by the high rate of economic growth because the other two groups, which are
known as middle class and high income, have expanded at a very substantial rate.
Dwelling on the 223 million fortunate Indians, fortunate because they are the toast of the
West, he points out that the world is facing an expanding market in India. "Their
consumption has increased. They consume goods and services, particularly durable
goods, whose rate of growth has expanded. Many countries do not have [such huge
markets.] The whole picture of India's growth and 'India Shining' is coming from this [tiny
minority of] 225 million people."
He faults policy-planners for leakages in the system that deprive the targeted sections of
society of the benefits. "Lot of money has been spent on [poor] people but somehow this
money obviously has not been spent on them. In other words, the money has been
siphoned off by people who do not belong to this class, who belong to the upper class
either in terms of social status or in terms of income status. Obviously the kind of
programme that we had, that should have had some effect on them[ but it has] not had
the effect. On the other hand, in each of this group, there is a creamy layer. Their number
has expanded, even among the middle class and the rich among the SCs, STs, OBCs
and Muslims. So what has happened is that there is a definite basic gap in our planning
approach and development approach," he asserts. About 11.1 per cent of the middle-
income and one per cent of the high-income people belong to the SCs and STs. He goes
on to refer the Reserve Bank of India's priority sector lending to buttress his argument.
He pointed out that the agricultural credit has doubled but the small and marginal
farmers have not benefited at all, suggesting that the money spent has not been used by
those for whom it was meant.
Dr Sengupta is certain that there is no hope for the downtrodden unless India accepts
that poverty is a violation of human rights, just as slavery was a violation of human
rights. "When slavery was abolished it was abolished because society in the US
accepted that this was a violation of human rights and they had to do something to
prevent the practice of slavery. So we have to do something similar." He believes
poverty human rights offers a compelling alternative to the -isms like capitalism,
communism and socialism. "Once you accept that this is a violation of human rights then
the whole nature of the discourse changes ... that we have to do something to remove
poverty ... what is the best way of removing poverty. We need to use markets but market
alone cannot do. We need to use state intervention but state intervention for the sake of
state intervention cannot do. We have to have a clear objective and whenever you are
talking about objectives, this question of human rights becomes important."
Dr Sengupta maintains that growth by itself is not enough; there needs to be concerted
efforts ("targeted schemes," he says) to reach the intended beneficiaries. Otherwise, he
seeks to suggest, India at 60 years after Independence will continue to be associated
with poverty for some time to come. Incidentally, a British Broadcasting Corporation
(BBC) global survey conducted on the socio-economic perception on India and Pakistan
after 60 years of Independence from the British rule found that the world associated India
with poverty, besides Mahatma Gandhi and Taj Mahal.
// FACTS AND FIGURES //
* As on January 2005, the total employment in the Indian economy was 457 million, of
which the unorganised sector accounted for 395 million, or 86 per cent of total workers.
* Of the 395 million unorganised sector workers, agriculture accounted for 253 million
and the rest 142 million are in non-agriculture.
* The total number of unorganised / informal workers is 423 million, of which 395 million
are in unorganised sector and 28 million in the organised sector.
* The number of informal workers in the organised sector increased by 8.6 million, from
20.5 million to 29.1 million, which means that the entire net increase in the employment
in the organised sector consisted of informal workers, without job security or social
security benefits.
No comments:
Post a Comment