Despite growth, hunger index high

Poor economic growth would make every sector suffer whether it is education, nutrition or health. What the 12th Plan can do depends on the revenues of the state. The government has already indicated that the economic growth rate could come down to five per cent in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-13 to 2016-17) as an average a year.

The Central Plan outlay may be pegged at Rs 47.69 lakh crore or any figure but for me these are theoretical, bogus figures if they are not backed by actual revenue growth. You may put any number, but if funds are not available how can you translate these numbers into reality?

I haven’t seen the chapters in the Plan but it is an academic exercise. Budgets will be made on the basis of taxation. Tax revenue should be at least 20 per cent of the GDP. It has come down here from 18 to 15 per cent. If the GDP does not increase, the proportion of taxation revenue would also decrease.

In developed countries, the taxation revenue is as high as 30-40 per cent of GDP. In Sweden, for instance, tax revenue is 46 per cent of GDP. The relevance of the 12th Plan is based on economic growth. Ministries can do little if there is no money.

As for specific issues, the word hunger, for instance, does not appear even once in the 12th Plan approach paper, though according to the latest Global Hunger Index, India continues to be in the category of nations where hunger is ‘alarming.’

Despite a high growth in the recent past, hunger index in India between 1996 and 2011 has gone up from 22.9 to 23.7 and 78 out of 81 developing countries have been able to reduce hunger.

But, allocations for nutrition would have to depend on the economic growth we get. Again, agricultural production has been declining. According to the latest Economic Survey, food production has gone down from 208 kg per annum in 1996-97 to 200 kg per annum in 2010-11. From the reduced production, India has been exporting cereals of seven million tones, affecting the cereal intake of the poor.

Those who are below the poverty line are forced to cut down on their food consumption to attend to the needs of education and health, which were not considered important in the past. The increase in agricultural GDP has been because of higher relative prices and not because of higher productivity. So, nutritional poverty, education, health and agriculture, all of these aspects of a person’s life are crying for attention. But, unless there is economic growth, all of these are likely to get scarce attention in the Plan.

(The writer is a former secretary of the Planning Commission) (As told to Sreelatha Menon)