India could have utilised high growth period better: Amartya Sen

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen on Thursday said the Indian government did not utilise the high growth period to address the concerns of the poorest of the poor in the country as much as subsidising the very privileged consumers on things like fuel.

"India spends 2 per cent of the GDP on electricity though one-third of its population still live without electricity. If you look at the share of government expenditure on healthcare, India figures third or fourth from the bottom of the list of over 200 countries," he said after receiving honorary doctorate from University of Hyderabad today.

Delivering a lecture on the theme titled 'Are coffee houses important for education?' implying a necessity for greater engagement on issues of poverty and governmental priorities, Sen said persuasion and dialogue were all the more important at this juncture to build greater agreement.

For a country that languished in a no-growth situation for almost 200 years at the time of British rule, a 3.5 per cent growth in the first 50 years of Independence was a big jump and the present 4.5-5 per cent growth is still higher. But the question is it can be a lot more, Sen said.

Higher growth will help the government mop up higher revenues to do those things only a state can do well such as education and healthcare.

However, the government is over extended only in those things where it cannot do well like doing license permit raj to prevent individual initiatives, according to him.