India's low 'SHE' quotient.

The country has fared dismally over the past six decades in providing safety, health and education to its people

The country has an extremely low SHE quotient. By this I am not referring to the lack of respect the country has for women but to the low levels of safety, health and education in the country. These three elements are the cornerstone for the development of a healthy and vibrant society. And a healthy and vibrant society is the bedrock for a prosperous nation. If the population of a country is safe, educated and healthy the productivity is much higher and automatically the growth of a nation is comparatively higher. This is what is essentially meant by reaping the benefits of a healthy population – technically termed as “demographic dividends”.

Dividend is the earning that accrues after investments have been made. Sadly, the government in India does not believe in this definition. The new chapter in the Economic Survey 2012-13, titled “Seizing the Demographic Dividend” speaks about the various benefits of demographic dividend and has a whole lot of useless international comparisons but offers little on the solution front. India has done precious little over the last few decades to shore up the levels of education and health of the population and this is now becoming evident in society. Policymakers have throughout considered only the quantitative aspects of the population and have failed miserably on shoring up the qualitative characteristics.

In the current scenario, for India to be successful in attracting, absorbing and benefiting from foreign direct investment and the rapid technological advances, the country will have to depend to a large extent on the local supply of needed skills and technical knowledge. India should develop and enhance its pool of skilled labour and build up its own ability both to use and to improve upon technology. The necessary condition under such initiative is the reorientation and restructuring of educational system towards more skill enhancement. This will raise both the demand for education and also make the economy more competitive.

For a participant in the education system to assimilate and articulate what has been taught - being healthy is a precondition. According to a report released in June 2012, despite recent year-on-year GDP growth rates of 8% or 9%, more than four in 10 children under five years of age in the country are malnourished and many more suffer from stunted growth. The levels are almost twice as high those found in sub-Saharan Africa. Urgent measures are required to rectify these anomalies.

Until and unless the government confirms its commitment through concrete action on these two fronts, it will be a matter of time before the so called “Demographic Dividend” would be converted into “Demographic Liability”.