BY the nature of Growth: Indian Inc.
Shashikant Kumar
We Indians are supported a lot by the government machinery from the getting admissionof children to marriage to agriculture to industry to even getting richer. Is this is whatgrowth means? The policy making of the democratic nation has in its helm of affair “ignited” the growth prospects of those who have and those who do not have a pennylive. We have worked for all who matters in the growth oriented economic policies.From the Budget of the nation, state and district we have moved towards budgeting thePanchayats and eventually villages. The economic flow of money from one source of distribution to another has resulted in the money accumulated in these sources of power to distribute through more than 5000 different schemes meant for all the sections of thesociety from the Schedules Castes to Schedules Tribe to Women to Children to theminorities and now even NRI ! We have taken care of all the beneficiaries. But whatmakes us shout our lungs out for the 700 million Indians who were supposed to benefit(excluding the 10 million rich and 2 million billioners India has produced). We havetargeted our reforms and libralisation for the 2 percent of the industrial and richcommunity. We have created class divide in the society by keeping the masses aloof fromthe benefits by making the issue of reservation, minority rights, environmental andintellectual movements. Those who have received the benefits of the libral government policies and reform have been churning the wheels of economic freedom to makemaximum out of it. As if they are the “Devtas” and masses are “Asuras”.The masses once more than 80 percent were dependent on the agriculture are not allowedto stay in the fields instead are forced labour in the factories, live in slums of metros,slave out in Information Technology Parks and malls owned by the elites. This was notthe dream of the martyrs and freedom fighters of the nation. The fight was not only togive the country freedom from the British rule but also the manner in which the resourcesof rural India was exploited by the industries, government and elites. The setting of Indian industries during those time was answer to the capital intensive and exportoriented industries mainly created for the empire.We started well by setting the large public industries which were largely from the publicmoney and people from the country proudly called it ‘Ratna’. But now what remains is‘stones’ which hamphers the growth of nation. The burden of development cannot be leftto the public industries, the private sector have contributed enough in making the moneyspin, but this was not for You and Me but for the enterprise owners and shareholders.Where else than you find the dwindling the Small and Medium Enterprise, death of cottage and household industries. The opening of competition between the Indian smalland Medium Industries with the mega multinational companies instantly killed theindustries already survived on the borrowed oxygen from the government. The protectivecovers of the industries were removed to die own death in the heat of the competition.
Now about the agriculturists the burden of the population was cited as important point inlimitation of the planners to allow the farmers and their families to depend on it. Whatmakes the development slow, not the land availability but lacking the per hectare productivity (we have not developed the technology). The fruits of the first
greenrevolution
in the country cannot be harnessed even after thirty years we have to move onand take the realities of the ground on our hand. The land record system in the nation is bad and we have not maintained proper natural resource inventory, why we want todestroy the agricultural lands only in the name of the industry. Why we cannot developthe bad land, waste land and arid land for the benefit of agriculture? The area under theirrigation has not increased as per the desired scale in our states. Most of the developedstates have shun agriculture in lieu of industrialization are facing the shortage of areaunder the food crops. The backward states like UP, Bihar and Rajasthan has enough landto support the population, even if do not bother to understand the ‘carrying capacity’ of the land. The declining productivity is also result of the poor fertilizer policy (excessivesubsidy and use) resulting in making unfruitful utilization of it on the not so requiredarea.How to set things right or change the nature of growth? We have experienced in countrythat one can set up an industry worth billions of Rupees in India without any licensetoday, but a farmer in U.P. can neither set up a brick kiln unit, nor a rice shelling plant,nor a cold storage, and not even cut a tree standing on his own private field without bribing several officials. The impact of reforms on the poor has been adverse because of their vulnerable socio-economic position, and in such a case spending money ondevelopment schemes without improving their bargaining power will further impoverishthem. The sociological and political factors that lie behind the institutional constraints on poverty reduction get little mention in the government programmes. How existing policies impact on the poor is hardly analysed by the rural development departments of central and state governments.Government intervention should not only improve the incomes of the poor, but their bargaining power vis-a-vis the moneylenders, landlords and bureaucracy. Suchempowering measures need to be distinguished from the populist measures which merelyact as doles and do not enable the poor to stand on their own legs or fight for their rights.Empowerment is good in itself, leads to higher incomes, and checks corruption andarbitrary use of power. In the past this was sought to be achieved through land reforms,although it appears to be a closed chapter now.Another very important element which is emerging in the country is non-governmentalorganizations (NGO). There may be NGOs just making money and doing nothingwonderful, but there are also a large number of good NGOs who are workingindependent of government and they would after some time be very powerful and theCivil Services would have to compete with them. In Bangladesh, 80 to 90% of alldevelopment funds are spent through the NGOs. The coming years will see increasingimportance of NGOs in policy making and implementation in India too.
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By the Nature of Growth
This is just important comment on nature of development
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